Guwahati, Jan. 24: IIT Guwahati will attempt to break the Guinness World Record of forming the largest human-made currency symbol on Friday.
As a part of the 20th Alcheringa - a four-day annual festival on the institute's campus in north Guwahati from January 28 to 31 - the institute will involve around 1,000 persons to form the Indian rupee symbol.
"We have gathered around 1,000 volunteers who will stand on the layout of a rupee symbol on campus wearing black hats and uniforms provided by our institute. The earlier record was by Transferwise (UK), in Toosikannu, Estonia, in June last year when 351 people formed the euro symbol," the convener of the Alcheringa festival, Ishan Sharma, said.
The current rupee symbol was designed by Uday Kumar Dharmalingam, a faculty of IIT Guwahati. It was selected by the Centre out of five other shortlisted designs in July 2010.
"As the design was created by a faculty from our institute, we should break the Guinness record of the largest human symbol of our currency," Sharma said.
The festival also has a plethora of activities over four days that have been categorised as Saaz, Blitzkrieg, Crescendo and Juggernaut.
"For Saaz, we have classical music featuring sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan, along with his sons Aman and Ayaan. The Blitzkrieg night will see performances of India's top DJs Dualist Inquiry and Sandunes. Crescendo will be the Bollywood night featuring Indian pop singer Mika. For Juggernaut, we have invited Finnish band Korpiklaani," Ishan said.
"We have set up a carnival-type environment with a number of food stalls. Irish folk music band, Fasta, Singapore's jazz band, Tropic Green, poetry slam artist from Australia, Omar Musa, techno-rock band from UK, Metastasis, renowned Portuguese horn player, Michael Faustino and Irish street player, Murray Molloy will perform in the four-day carnival," Labanu Konwar, spokesperson for IIT Guwahati, said.
Alcheringa will also have several other performances by Indian and local rock bands. There will be music and dance competitions as well.
