Guwahati, July 13: With 800 plucks per minute on his mandolin, he beats the butterfly wings down, which can only muster 720 flaps in the same time.
Meet 52-year-old Kuntal Raj Chakraborty, who has now set his sights on Guinness World Records and aims to pull the strings 1,200 times in a minute.
Mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family and is usually plucked with a plectrum or "pick".
Chakraborty made it to the India Book of Records as the fastest mandolin player on June 27. Santanu Thakur and Kishore Giri Kuligham are the other two renowned mandolin players in Guwahati.
"There are records for playing the fastest guitar and other musical instruments, but not mandolin. That way, it is a world record," Chakraborty told The Telegraph on the sidelines of a media interaction here this afternoon.
"For the India Book of Records, I played a western classical composition. I have submitted my work there and the committee is going through it. It generally takes three months for it to check the submission after which I will be asked to play it. I am planning to play at 1,200 plucks a minute this time. I have been practising to reach that speed," he said.
The record for playing the fastest six-string guitar was created by a 16-year-old Nepali youth Nirvana Bista, a student in Mussoorie. He played Flight of the Bumblebee at 1,600 plucks per minute.
"It is, however, tough to create sound on a mandolin at high speed as it has eight strings very tightly strung. To create a rhythmic sound, the strings need to be struck properly, which further decreases the speed," Chakraborty explained.
He is among the few who were inspired by the Italian musical instrument that gained much popularity in the country in the 1970s and eighties through R.D. Burman.
"It was in the seventies when R.D. Burman's composition Tum Bin Jaoon Kahan, sung by Kishore Kumar, first attracted me to this instrument. The love only grew stronger through Assamese singer-composers Jayanta Hazarika and Bhupen Hazarika over the next decade. In 1980, I started my career as a mandolin player," Chakraborty said.
He also plays the 12-string mando guitar and banjo. He has played mandolin for numerous Assamese movies and songs and participated in shows in Bangalore and Chennai.
"After this, I am planning to get involved in projects to popularise the instrument among youths. They all love the guitar. Mandolin is more challenging but it can impart an entirely different level of melody to songs," he said.
