Nadia's Phulia aims at Guinness glory with longest alpana

Kolkata: Known for its renowned taant sarees, Phulia in Nadia district of Bengal is now eyeing a place in the Guinness Book of World Records by creating alpana stretching a distance of 2.73 km. Junior One Hundred club at Phulia that consists mainly of young members took this initiative and around 1,500 artists including a good number of students from Kolkata Art College created this muti-coloured alpana.

"We have drawn inspiration from the Samajsevi club at Lake Road that had painted nearly a km stretch with alpana during the Durga Puja. We scanned information from the internet and learnt that till now the longest alpana of 1.5 km has been done at Bangladesh. We decided to break that record and from Saturday night till Sunday 6 am we put alpana on 2.73 km road, which is the world's longest," Chandan Mullick, a member of the club said.

The alpana stretches from Phulia bus stand to Phulia Hospital. The young members of the club and the local people who took part in the initiative were thrilled as they got the opportunity to interact with so many students of the Kolkata Art College.

People in this part of Nadia are mainly weavers and are busy with their looms throughout the day. "We try to organise pujas, cultural programmes that may act as a solace to their monotonous lives and motivate them but this idea excited

all. Even the housewives in the area joined hands," a club member said.

The District Magistrate and police superintendent of Nadia graced the event.