The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : 54,600 colours on this silk saree

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 21, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

54,600 colours on this silk saree

Susan Muthalaly

RmKV in fresh bid to get into Guinness Book RmKV in fresh bid to get into the Guinness Book

A COLOURFUL FEAT: T.H. Somashekar, right, from the Central Silk Technological Research Institute, and N. Murali, Joint Managing Director of The Hindu , examine an RmKV silk saree that has a record-breaking 54,600 colours. The company is attem pting to enter into the Guinness Book of World records with this creation. — Photo: S. Thanthoni.

CHENNAI: RmKV is having a go at setting a new world record for the silk saree with the most number of colours - 54,600 to be precise.

The brand that holds a record in the Guinness Book for the world's longest saree (702 feet, set last year) is back with another brave attempt to promote silk and silk weavers.

However, this time, the record-breaker is of manageable length of six yards.

T.H. Somashekar from the Central Silk Technological Research Institute and N. Murali, Joint Managing Director of The Hindu , served as the two experts required to verify the claim of RmKV as per the Guinness Book rules.

The saree unveiled amid smoke and drum roll has a body with a series of boxes, each of a different colour.

K. Vishwanathan, a partner at RmKV, invited people to try counting the colours. One got as far as seven all of the red-blue-green genre.

Newspaper designer Mario Garcia came up with ochre. And then there was silence.

When Mr. Vishwanathan declared it was time for the judges to count the colours, curious onlookers stepped on each other's feet to see how they would go about the task. But that's where professionals come in handy.

Mr. Somashekar, whose department has been supporting the company's colourful endeavours, already knew that each box contains a different shade or hue.

They ascertained this with the help of a colour-matching computer.

So all he had to do was count the number of boxes. There were 105 on the warp and 520 on the weft.

Mr. Vishwanathan said the creation would be a colour encyclopaedia for RmKV, which customers could use as a palette to decide the colour of the silks they buy.

Mr. Murali described the innovation of tradition and technological art as a truly marvellous feat.

As for the charge, Mr. Vishwanathan said it seemed fair to charge one rupee per colour. And if you think 54,600 colours may be a bit much for anyone to carry off, you will soon see a certain Tamil star called Jyotika modelling it.

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