Search for the mermaid at Kollam Beach and you will be told, confidently and in several places, that she is 26.5 metres long, that she was made by Kanayi Kunhiraman, that a District Collector once tried to stop her being built on grounds of obscenity, and that she holds a Guinness World Record. Every one of those facts is true. None of them is about her.
The test
There is a single check that separates the two statues, and it works on any photograph, which is more than can be said for most of the claims attached to either.
Sagarakanyaka at Shanghumukham Beach in Thiruvananthapuram reclines. She lies full length in a shell-shaped pool about thirty-two metres long, head propped, body horizontal.
The mermaid in Mahatma Gandhi Park at Kollam sits up. Torso vertical, head raised and turned slightly, hands folded over the tail. If the figure in front of you is upright, you are at Kollam.
The one everybody is actually describing
Sagarakanyaka — also called Jalakanyaka or Matsyakanyaka, which is part of the problem — was built between 1990 and 1992 by the sculptor Kanayi Kunhiraman at Shanghumukham, and she is 26.5 metres long and 7.6 metres tall. She is concrete, she belongs to the Government of Kerala, and Kunhiraman took no fee for her.
She also has the better story. During construction the District Collector ordered the work stopped on the grounds that the sculpture was obscene; the Chief Minister, K. Karunakaran, intervened and let Kunhiraman finish. In October 2022 Guinness World Records recognised her as the largest merperson sculpture in the world, with a record text that describes her as a mermaid seeking refuge on land because the sea has become polluted.
It is an excellent story. It happened sixty-five kilometres from Kollam Beach.
What is genuinely known about the Kollam figure
Less than you would like. She stands in Mahatma Gandhi Park at Kochupilamoodu and is described in Kerala listings as around 35 feet. She is unmistakably a major public sculpture — a 2023 photograph shows her towering over palmyra palms, with a Kollam Corporation parking-rate board at her feet, so she is very much still there.
Beyond that the trail goes thin fast. The account in circulation gives a plan from 2000, a sculptor named Shanthanu who began work in 2003, an abandonment for lack of funds, a completion by Vijayan V. Chavara, and an unveiling on 2 August 2005, with an iconography of a mermaid cursed to live on land for having loved a sailor.
We have not printed those names and dates as fact, and neither should anyone else without better sourcing. The single source available for them is an enthusiast website, and it is internally inconsistent — it gives the height as 27 feet where Kerala listings say 35. No news report and no government record could be found. That is a striking gap for a large public monument in a corporation park, and it is worth saying so plainly rather than papering over it.
How thoroughly the two have merged
Here is the measure of it. Kerala Tourism’s own social media account has described “Jalakanyaka (a gigantic 35 m long sculpture of a mermaid) at Shankumugham beach Trivandrum”.
Read that again. Thirty-five is Kollam’s number — and it is Kollam’s number in feet. The Trivandrum statue is 26.5 metres. The state tourism department has taken one statue’s figure, converted its unit by accident, and attached it to the other statue. Two mermaids, one shared name, and the numbers already swapped at the official level.
The claim nobody makes
And there is a small injustice buried in all this. If Shanghumukham’s reclining figure is the largest merperson sculpture in the world, then Kollam’s upright one is a strong candidate for the second largest. Nobody says so. She is close enough to the record-holder, in geography and in name, that she is permanently read as a smaller copy of it rather than as a substantial work in her own right.
Go and stand under her anyway. She is the reason half the photographs of this beach exist, and she is not the statue you have read about.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Kollam mermaid the one with the Guinness record?
No. The record for the largest merperson sculpture belongs to Sagarakanyaka at Shanghumukham Beach in Thiruvananthapuram, recognised in October 2022. That one reclines and is 26.5 m long. Kollam’s sits upright and is a different statue by a different sculptor.
How do I tell them apart?
Posture. Shanghumukham’s lies down full length in a shell-shaped pool. Kollam’s sits upright with her head raised and her hands folded over her tail. It works from any photograph.
Who made the Kollam mermaid and when?
We could not establish it to a standard worth printing. An account naming a sculptor and a 2005 unveiling exists, but the only source for it is an enthusiast website that contradicts itself on the statue’s height, and no news or government record could be found.
How big is she?
Kerala listings say around 35 feet; the one detailed source available says 27. Both figures are in circulation and neither is well sourced, so we have not asserted one.