JOIN USHe talks his way into Guinness Book
Brahmanand has set his eyes on creating a new record by speaking for 40 hours on the philosophy of Swami Vivekananda.
When Dr Pothula Srinivasa Brahmanand, an agriculture scientist, was participating in debate competitions in school at his native Andhra Pradesh, he, perhaps, was not aware that one day his oratory skills would get him an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records.
The 39-year old agronomist, based in Bhubaneswar for the last 15 years, has created a Guinness record for delivering the longest speech.
“I have been an excellent debater from my school days and I always enjoyed it. Therefore, I was delighted when I received the certificate from the Guinness Book of Records just a few days back,” said Brahmanand, currently working as a senior scientist at the city-based Directorate of Water Management under the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR).
A PhD holder from IIT, Kharagpur, Brahmanand had delivered his marathon 33 hour 46 minutes speech at a specially organised event here in September last. It was, in fact, 36 hours and 16 minutes lecture if one would take into account the breaks allowed by the record book authorities to attend to nature’s call and have some food and water. He survived the entire period with two idlis, a cup of rice, organic tea and water.
The event commenced at 8 am on September 8, World Literacy Day, and finished next morning. However, the record book acknowledged his feat only late last month after scrutinising the video footage of the entire speech recorded in 25 DVDs.
His journey to record book, however, was not an easy one. When he approached the Guinness Book, they gave him two options--to invite their representatives to witness the performance or send recorded video tapes for approval and certification.
“I opted for the second as the first one would have been costlier,” observed the scientist.He would have had to take care of the travel, lodging and food expenses of the Guinness officials if he had chosen the first option. Even the second option was not very easy as he hadto follow a number of rules and conditions imposed by the record book authorities.
For his event, which was organised at an auditorium of a private university in the Odisha capital, he had to engage stewards, time keepers and other helping hands to maintain the log book and attendance register besides a videographer for recording. In addition, there had to be one notary advocate to certify the event after watching the entire live speech.
Study material
That’s not all. As per rules, at any given point of time during the speech, there had to be at least 10 listeners in the auditorium. Once the technical arrangements were over, he then shifted his focus to preparations for the big event. He needed a lot of study material as he had to speak for such a long time. During his record-breaking speech in English, he lectured on 36 topics based on four subjects --science, technology, society and human development.
Before the actual event, he had two rehearsals at his residence with only wife Swarnalata by his side. While the first rehearsal was for 12 hours, the second lasted 15 hours. “I did both the rehearsals in the night because I knew that during the actual event I had to speak throughout the night. It was a kind of tough mental and physical exercise for me before the actual event,” said the young agriculture scientist.
Brahmanand now wants to surpass his own record. He is contemplating
delivering another marathon speech which is expected to last 40 hours. “I am very much confident that I can achieve the feat,” he maintained. He is planning to stage the event either in December or January next. An ardent admirer and follower of Swami Vivekananda, the scientist wants to speak only on the philosophy and teachings of Swamiji.
“There is a need now to spread the teachings of Swami Vivekananda among the youth in the country,” he said. Many things had kept him going while he was delivering his record-creating lecture last year. And one among them was the historic speech delivered by Vivekananda in Chicago.
Apart from participating in debates and delivering long lectures, Brahmanand is also fond of learning languages. He is fluent in Telugu, Hindi and Odia
besides English. “I know a little bit of French,” he said.
The agronomist has to his credit three books-- two in Hindi and one in English. His Hindi books on globalisation and Indian food security have won the prestigious Indira Gandhi Rajbhasa Puraskar.