It’s A Matter Of Records

Matter

Fayaz Q

The 8th of November is officially entitled the Guinness World Record Day and if you Google, the Guinness world record for the longest play, you will be quite surprised as I was, that the world record title is won by none other than a bunch of college goers who reside with us right here in Chennai. Initiated by the PG Department of Human Rights and Duties in Ethiraj College for Women, and Bioscoops Entertainment Pvt Ltd (all India), 25 girls made it their mission to bring the record home.

My first thought when I heard this was, maybe the play had been 12 hours which in my opinion was a pretty long time. Alas! I was ignorant and my jaw hit the floor when I discovered that the play portrayed by the team was for 28 hours 34 minutes and 43 seconds. I’m sure, like me, you too could not wrap your head around the fact that an entire group of actors stood and delivered a play for 28 hours straight with no sleep or breaks. To find out more about this play, I reached out to Ms. Shirley Grace Nirmala Asst. Professor from the PG Department of Human Rights and Duties, Ethiraj College for Women. Straight off the bat, I asked her how does one wake up on a day and out of the blue decide to create the world’s longest play? She told me that a friend of hers, Mr. Naan Maadhan (Esakiyarajan) Founder and CEO of Bioscoops Entertaintment Pvt Ltd. was instrumental in the germination of this idea. He wanted to write and perform the world’s longest play. This is where Mrs. Shirly perked up saying, “if the idea is to create the world longest play, why not break the record with the help of girls from Ethiraj?” He protested earlier but eventually agreed to carry forward this bold attempt if the college agrees. “Thanks to the help of Ms. R. Nithya, Head of Department of the same, the plan was given greenlight.”

The name of the play was “KAALAKOORU” meaning a slice of time which discussed 11 human right issues with each topic running for about 3 hours. The pages of the documented play ran for over 3000 pages written by Mr. Naan Maadhan (Esakiyarajan). “Most plays have 100 pages but imagine having 30 plays worth of content crammed in one long play of 3000 pages.” 25 young girls volunteered for this brave attempt. 16 from the Dept. of Human Rights and rest from other departments. “Mind you, all these girls were fresh to the stage, they did not have prior stage experience, I have seen experienced actor fumble and mumble before the live crowd and those were normal length plays — this play was ran for 3000 pages; imagine the scope and enormity that these girls have to go through in performing it.” says Mrs. Shirly.

“To get the girls prepared for this marathon of a play, they were trained in acting for three months by the director of the play Suthan and then trained again for six more months with the script of the play. Total preparation time for this play took about 9 months until the day of the performance on the 8th of March.” On the eve of the official presentation of the play, two tents were raised which acted as improvised versions of a green room, where 50 costumes for each character were stored; just to give you an idea of the scope. Along with that 250 volunteers involved for the smooth functioning of the play. Guinness approved witnesses where invited as a proof and an official timekeeper with stopwatch was present to document the duration of the play. 9 months of practice unravelled at the Ethiraj College’s auditorium and when it was announced that they beat the duration of the previous world record, there were absolutely no words to sketch out the feeling. The auditorium erupted into applause and tears of joy. Congratulations were passed but for the people involved, knowing that they had done it was the proof of their success and their agenda behind it: -That women can stay on their ground and deliver, just as well as man, may be even better.