MANGALORE, Karnataka(SAR NEWS) --A Konkani cultural organisation has created a Guinness world record for singing Konkani songs non-stop for forty hours.
The feat was achieved January 26-27 here by the local Mandd Sobhann group that works for the promotion of Konkani language and culture in Mangalore.
The programme entitled Konkani Nirantari was led by Eric Ozario and others. Forty-four groups comprising more than 1,700 singers sang a total of 600 songs breaking the previous record by Communidade Evanjelica Luterana of Sao Paolo, Brazil, which sang for 36 hours in 2004.
Singers from the various parishes of Mangalore diocese, Goa, Mumbai, Mysore, Bangalore and from the Gulf participated in the event which kicked off at 6 a.m. on Saturday January 26, and ended at 10 p.m. January 27 -- a total of 40 hours.
Keith Pullin from the Guinness Book of World Records London was the adjudicator. At the end of the marathon, he certified that Maand Sobhann had created a new record. There are 953 Guinness records involving India already.
Konkani is the mother tongue of about 6.5 million people concentrated in Mangalore and Dakshina Kannada, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa, and scattered in Europe, America and the Gulf states. It is the mother tongue, among others, of Mangalorean and Goan Catholics and is the state language of Goa.
Bishop Aloysius P. DSouza of Mangalore blessed the proceedings at the start of the marathon, which was started by a group of Sisters of the Queen of Apostles, Vamanjoor.
The Bethany Sisters, St. Josephs Seminary, the Dominican congregation and Sandesha also formed part of the great effort.
