CHENNAI : On January 16, as the clock struck 7.45 am, a Guinness World Record was broken by HR Kanish. Dressed in a black hoodie, sitting on a plastic chair with tables covered in white cloth in front of him, and boxes of Rubik’s cubes placed on the floor, this feat was witnessed by the members of the Tamil Nadu Cube Association at Sree Akshayam hotel in Anna Nagar. Kanish now holds the record for the maximum number of solves with a diagonally rotating Rubik’s cube (skewb) nonstop for 24 hours. While the previous record at this time was 5,000 cubes, Kanish solved 9,793 cubes, and the quickest solved cube was in one second.
“I was really happy and pretty much exhausted,” said Kanish when the new record was set. He started slow so that he could warm up and stay energised for the rest of the day and night. His pace increased as the sun rose higher and higher. “The actual speed started after the first session (after four hours). I solved a thousand cubes every two hours,” he said.
This speed remained constant until 7 pm with encouragement from friends and family. After a short break, the same process continued until 2 am. “Solving cube after cube, fatigue started setting in bringing my power down. But my friends kept motivating me which helped me regain my concentration,” shared Kanish.
In 24 hours, Kanish took a break of just two hours and one minute. The rest of the time, Kanish was hyper-focused on recognising and solving the 300 patterns of the cubes. “For example, one side of the cube (the face) is solved first then the rest is solved following one algorithm. It involves only two steps but there are minute changes in each step. In this case, recognition is very important,” said Kanish who learned to solve the cube on his own in two years.
Solving the Rubik’s cube started as a hobby for Kanish after watching the videos posted by YouTuber Feliks Zemdegs. He said, “Videos of people solving cubes extremely fast gave a small spark for this hobby.” Though it was a daunting process, there was also a motivation to try it out because the cube also acted as a stress buster for an eight-year-old Kanish.
All through his journey, Kanish’s parents supported and guided him. “Kanish reached here with his endurance and hard work. His hand movement is really good and whatever he has achieved is out of his interest,” says Dr Rajmohan, Kanish’s father. He added that this is an inspiration for other kids to work on their passion.
Following this achievement, Kanish promises that every day he will work on his other interests — Taekwondo, table tennis, and piano — and set new records.