Jaipur sets a Guinness Record in 'bhoomi pooja'

Jaipur, Nov 17 (UNI) The Pink City today witnessed the record breaking event of 4532 people including 3510 poojaris(pundits) performing 'bhoomi poojan'' (ground breaking) ceremony of a residential project which placed it in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The 'bhoomi poojan' was held at the site of the proposed condo homes project ''My Haveli @Mannat 1'' by Unique Builders at Mahapura village about 16 km from Jaipur on the Jaipur-Ajmer Road.

The ritual started at 1100 hrs which continued for about two hours.

Guinness World Record adjudicate Kim Lancy had flown in from London to witness the rare event. Lancy confirmed that the event would be recorded in the Guinness book, breaking the earlier record in September 2003 where 2453 people with shovels simultaneously dug to break ground for the Providence Newberg Medical Centre in Oregaon, US.

She said ''It is truly amazing. I have never seen such an event before''.

Mr Vibhishek Singh, director of Unique Builders explained the rational behind the effort. He said ''the project 'My Haveli' proposes to construct 3510 affordable condo homes. So as many numbers of pundits (literally one per condominium) from all over the country were specially requested to perform the rites and invoke divine blessings''. The pooja ceremony was performed as per Hindu tradition with a large havan of ritual fire with Vedic chants led by noted pundit Chandra Shekhar who along with 100 pundits was flown in from Bangalore, specially for the event.

Amit Bagaria, chairman of Asipac Development Services consultant to the project said ''We have spent several months in conceptualizing the event. The biggest challenge was to find 3510 regular pundits to match the number of condos. Standbys had to be ready for contingency. We are happy that by last count as many as 4532 people performing the ritual has finally set a record to get a place in the Guinness Book of Record.'' UNI