Mumbai, July 17: Ever since budding architect Vikas Sharma decided to do a thesis on `INS Vikrant - A Museum on Bay,' his professors and friends nicknamed him Vikrant Sharma because of his obsession for India's greatest warship and aircraft carrier.Having recently graduated with a first class in architecture on the basis of his mini-model of Vikrant Museum, Vikas now wants to present his plans to Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and the Navy for making the war memorial a reality.``Early last year I came to know through newspapers that Vikrant was in danger of being scrapped and sold to ship-breakers for a paltry Rs 5.80 crore. That's when I made up my mind to work on a maritime museum for the ship,'' says 21-year-old Vikas, who has recently graduated from Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture in Juhu.Six months of painstaking research, which included several visits to INS Vikrant in the Naval Dockyard, led to successful completion of his thesis, and Vikas graduated with a first class in architecture. But he is not satisfied just with the degree.``The fate of Vikrant is still uncertain as the state government is waiting for the feasiblity report on the Vikrant museum at Oyster Rock. At the same time, the Navy has not yet dry-docked the ship in order to strengthen the hull and increase the lifespan of the aircraft carrier,'' he remarks.Admitting of being a `Vikrantophile', Vikas comments: ``The first time I stood before the ski-jump end of the warship, I understood the kind of fear Pakistanis must have felt in Bangladesh in 1971. Vikrant is such an awesome war machine, one is guaranteed to fall in love with her on visiting the ship just once!''He therefore wants Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to visit Vikrant and see his dream plan model of the museum as he strongly believes politicians can help in saving the ship. ``In my thesis I have also mentioned case studies of several other warships in Europe and America that have been preserved as museums and are in fact doing very well as main tourist attractions,'' he says.Another architecture student from Baroda, Himanshu Pathak, has also submitted his thesis on the redesigning of the ship as a museum. Pathak has given the case study of the Wasa warship in Sweden that has been converted into a Boston Tea Party museum.Back in Mumbai, Vikas' teachers were initially taken aback to know he was actually modelling a ship museum using plaster of paris, but after seeing his intense research work and enthusiasm for the project, they were all impressed with their student. His model comprises the basic ship and an adjoining building on shore, where all the Vikrant facts will be displayed. There will also be a mini-theatre to show the glorious history of this floating airfield.``The problem with Mumbaikars is that they have not really seen any giant machines save for BEST double deckers and the 12-rake local trains. Which is why the common man does not really understand the importance of preserving a 700-feet-long leviathan which helped India beat Pakistan in 1971,'' he says, adding anyone is bound to feel a tinge of pride while standing on the flight deck of Vikrant.``If the government gives up on Vikrant, my friends and I will definitely undertake a fund-raising campaign to save her. If England can preserve the 16th century warship `Maryrose' that had sunk in the ocean, Vikrant should not be much of a problem,'' he adds. The other example of a war museum is of the 910-feet-long USS Lexington in USA which is also doing well.
