I had mentioned earlier how we humans go to great lengths to seek recognition here. Well, this post is more of the same.
Heard of one Mr Shashikant Prajapati from Bihar? Apparently, bitten by the ‘I need recognition’ bug, he worked diligently for, and gained entry into, the Guiness Book Of World Records for, hold your breath, making the world’s smallest wooden spoon. I mean the spoon is really small – just 1.6mm in size. Mr Prajapati achieved this none too easy feat by beating the previous record (held incidentally by another Indian, Mr Navratan Murtikar) by an impressive margin of 0.4 mm.
Now if you question the utility of such artistic feats and the sanity of the makers/Guiness people, I will disagree. You will be surprised to know that such ‘micro spoon making’ is quite a craze amongst a large section of the world’s inhabitants, numbering perhaps, as much as a full dozen. If you don’t believe me, just read this gushing tweet put up by the Guiness people – “New record: smallest wooden spoon – 1.6mm achieved by Shashikant Prajapati (India). A hotly contested record changes hands again, for the fourth time in three years.” To put this in perspective, the Olympic Long Jump record has remained unbeaten since 1968.
If any of you are like me, retired, you will agree that an idle mind is a devil’s workshop and hence not getting into The Wife’s hair is no easy task. I got quite excited therefore, when I heard about the above-mentioned feat and started imagining various ‘time pass’ activities that the spoon would allow me to indulge in, once it hit the markets. Making a cup of tea for example. Usually, I add two normal sized tea spoons of sugar (say 10 grams). Just imagine the joy of adding these 10 grams, a grain at a time with my new 1.6mm spoon. This would easily take up an hour. Two hours if I make an additional cup for The Wife. Would improve concentration too.
How about measuring 150 gm of rice for lunch? Another 2-3 hours gone. The mind positively boggles at the unlimited avenues that the spoon could bring up. These happy contemplations threw up an idea. “Surely Mr Prajapati cannot be the only ingenious genius in India,” I said to myself, “let me look up other such super achieving fellow countrymen”. I found my hypothesis correct. Google showed me that many Indians had equivalent records, for which if one used words such as magnificent, humongous or brilliant to describe them, would only be belittling their extraordinary achievements. Indians have the longest finger nails, longest ear (yes ear) hair, Indians have made the largest chapati, largest film poster, etc. However, just on a whim let us delve deeper into the following few:-
- Mr Nataraj from Salem holds the record for stuffing the maximum number of straws into his mouth, viz 650. Now unless he was practicing for eating bananas sideways, the reason for doing such a thing beats me. I am sure however, that any self-respecting python would look enviously at the elasticity of the lower mandible of this amazing man.
- I use two fingers to type; at I guess 20 words per minute. But what if I told you that one Mr Mohammed Hussain once typed 103 characters in 47 seconds? Now if you unknowingly thumb your nose at this feat, I will not fault you. After all, and I’m sure you know, most trained typists reach about 200 characters per minute using all ten fingers. But wait: Mr Hussain typed these 103 characters, without using ANY finger. That must have got you stumped, right? Well you will be even more so when I tell you that he used instead, just his nose. Yes nose! Thumb your nose at that!
- What is common amongst Salvador Dali, Albert Einstein and Anil Kapoor? Magnificent moustaches. Moustaches after all separate the grownups from the juvenile (unless you are a woman). Take Gandhiji. Would the British have treated him with the same gravitas if he had no vegetation on the upper lip? No doubt each of these men took great care of their appearance and spent hours grooming their moustaches. But when it comes to luxurious and abundant growth no one can beat Mr Ram Singh Chauhan from Jaipur. His claim to fame? The world’s longest moustache at an astounding 14 feet! That is more than two Amitabh Bachchans and one beer bottle lying end to end.
- The strongest suboccipital muscles (the ones that support the weight of the head) would belong to one Mr Avtar Singh Mauni from Punjab. No, while no doubt impressive, that is NOT a record by itself. The record flows from Mr Mauni’s turban. Apparently, he wears a turban using 645 metres of cloth weighing a 100 pounds. Talk about a weight on one’s shoulders! Imagine him trying to get into an airplane’s loo.
- Married life I’ve read somewhere, is mostly about asking your spouse, “Are you sitting on the TV remote?” Well two smart Indians, Suraj Kumar Meher and Rajesh Kumar Meher have resolved this issue by creating the world’s largest TV remote. It measures 4.5 metres long. And, remarkably works with ‘normal’ TVs. Try sitting on this one!
There are many more such feats listed in the Guiness Book of World Records, but I’m sure you have already gathered that we Indians are truly and absolutely sensational over achievers!