MANGALORE: He entered the Guinness Book of World Records by delivering a marathon lecture on "Molecular logic of life" in March this year. His 98-hour 30-minute feat bettered the previous record held by Narayanan Shivashankar, an Indian, who delivered a lecture for 72 hours and nine minutes.

For 36-year-old Annaiah Ramesh, a native of Hunsur taluk in Mysore district, setting a Guinness record was a dream come true. A teacher in the Department of Applied Botany in Mangalore University, Mr. Ramesh said authorities of the Guinness Book of World Records had authenticated his effort.

Admitting that there were many times during his marathon lecture when his fatigued body and mind did not allow him to continue, he said it was during such failing moments that encouragement and support from his well-wishers kept him going. On the reasons for performing the feat, Mr. Ramesh said it was not for personal gains.

"I want to use the goodwill in helping poor students who are deprived of good education and encouragement. I hope to set up a fund under a trust to be managed by persons of integrity," he said.

Stating that it had been his endeavour to raise a corpus of at least Rs. 10 crore for the proposed trust, Mr. Ramesh says the process would begin within a month. "The interest accumulated from such a fund will be utilised for providing scholarships to deserving students irrespective of their caste, creed or other considerations," he said.

Admitting that he had set a stiff task before him in raising the corpus, Mr. Ramesh said he intended to approach philanthropists, multinational companies and other donor agencies to help him in this cause. "It was my stated intention before I set out to break the record that I would utilise the goodwill generated to help economically poor students with their education," he added.

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