The 300-tonne larger-than-life sand structure was unveiled by Professor P Gopalan, dean of student affairs at IIT Bombay, on Thursday.

The sand structure has been carved by renowned sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik, who is also the founder of Golden Sand Art Institute (Puri-Orissa).

“My sculptures are usually based on current topics and events. And this too, is based on music, which is the theme of this year’s cultural festival at IIT-B. It is approximately eight feet tall,” said Pattnaik.

The hand-sculpted structure, which will be on display throughout the four-day festival (December 26-29), includes sculptures of musical instruments such as the veena, tabla and sarod along with the Mood Indigo slogan and logo. Integral to the structure is a face at the bottom corner which represents participants at the festival.

“Two of my students and I finished making the sculpture after working continuously for 15 hours on December 17. We required three trucks of sand for the structure,” said Pattnaik.

The 36th edition of the festival will host myriad event covering every aspect of music, drama, dance, exhibitions, films and competitions which includes livewire, adaa, ekaanki, tamasha, director’s cut, sultans of strings, mantra, ras-manzar, tarang, in the shadows, beat it and jive talking.

Nrityadarpan, dialectic, coded colours, photo-finish, a brush with darkness, art in motion, art-ism, naturalz, inkarnate, conundrums, silk route and at word's end, are some of the events that participants can look forward to.