HYDERABAD: How far will you go to see your name inscribed next to a world record? If you’re still unsure take your pick from the following. 17 university degrees, producing the most number of documentaries or stitching a pant with more than 300 pockets. Already sounds too far fetched and bizarre? Well either way you look at it; that’s just how a few denizens from the city live their life-by breaking records.
And united by this sheer passion to break records, 38 Andhraiites, most of them from Hyderabad, were honoured and recognised during the ‘India book of records day’ organised by Reliance Timeout here today. “We are here to appreciate and honour those who are striving to stretch all limits by the power of their will and mind”, said Chintapatla Venkata Chary, chief coordinator, South India, India book of records.
And stretching the limits, is just a daily routine for most of the awardees. Like Dr Edupuganti Padmaja Rani of Nallakunta, who has achieved 17 degrees over the last 9 and a half years; while lesser mortals would shudder to even think of going beyond two or at max three. Or in the case of 11 year old Soumithri Saraswathyraj from Nizamabad, who took only a week’s training to tune his memory to recall 50 random words in 3 minutes, in both forward and reverse order.
Trained in memory techniques under Guinness world record holder Biswaroop Roy Chowdhury, Soumithri can also recollect decimal points of ‘pi’ up to the 200th digit. Other equally impressive records included drawing the map of India using an ink pen in 4.20 minutes while staying afloat in 25 feet deep water, the most number of finger snaps in a minute, most number of documentaries produced, largest crossword puzzle, more than 200 stage performances by a single person, collection of soap wrappers, recalling periodic table in 52 seconds, and shooting a full fledged movie in 11 hours using 11 cameras, among others.
Ch Venkata Chary also took the occassion to launch ‘The India Book of Records 2012’ in both Hindi and English. Reliance Time Out simultaneously felicitated around 120 top records holders from various disciplines in 12 cities across the country at 12 pm on Thursday. The aim remains to encourage and motivate more youngsters to think and perform out of the box, said Dipak Marwah, business head, Reliance timeout.