In India, some setting records for ingenuity

new delhi -- How do you stand out in a land with a billion people?

Radhakant Bajpai did it by growing his ear hair more than five inches long.

Vadivelu Karunakaren did it by skipping 10 miles in 58 minutes.

Arvind Morarbhai Pandya did it by running 940 miles backward in 26 days, seven hours.

India is a land obsessed with superlatives, especially the kind that get you into the Guinness World Records book. Here, a Guinness record is the stuff of national headlines.

“Orissa man claims a record for cracking open 72 coconuts by elbow!” the Hindustan Times, a leading newspaper, trumpeted in August. “Uttar Pradesh boy can write on mustard seeds!” was a headline in July. The paper has run more than 50 stories this year about bids for Guinness records, and it is by no means ahead of its competition.

This just in from the Times of India, another highly respected daily: “Man looks to set world record pulling vehicles with mustache.”

Why the fascination? India, after all, is awash in genuine superlatives -- world’s largest democracy, world’s largest youth population. Why bother with fastest to drink a bottle of ketchup?

Guinness Rishi -- yes, his name is Guinness -- submitted the ketchup record after downing a bottle in 39 seconds. The Guinness company has yet to accept his bid.

Rishi said he sets records -- his business card lists 19 feats -- to distinguish himself in one of the world’s biggest crowds.

“People consider me an extraordinary person, not an ordinary person,” he said.

India, with 219 Guinness World Records, ranks only 10th on the list. The U.S. has the most, followed by Britain, Australia and Germany. But for sheer obsessive enthusiasm, and ingenuity in dreaming up new superlatives, India appears unbeatable.

There are various explanations.

In the new India, more people than ever are earning prestigious degrees and staggering salaries. But for millions who don’t have access to such routes for success, aiming for world records, no matter how ridiculous, provides a much-needed outlet in a society as rigid and hierarchical as India’s, say Rishi and other world-beaters.

After all, India’s widespread poverty and its caste system, though not the all-determining forces they once were, still make social boundaries hard to crack. Harder, perhaps, than breaking a world record.

“Persons who have no money wish to do something in their lives, so the poor people try to break records by their strength or their will,” said Rishi, 66, a partner in an auto parts factory.

His crowded bookshelves are filled exclusively with record books from past years. He also hires himself out as a consultant to would-be record breakers.

No one captures Guinness mania better. Rishi changed his first name from Har Parkash to Guinness after earning a record for being part of a team that kept a motor scooter in motion for 1,001 hours. He says he’s broken more than a dozen records, but the Guinness company has not yet accepted any others.

To claim the record for oldest adoptee, he adopted his 61-year-old brother-in-law. (He’s going to beat that one again now that he’s “working with a 90-year-old.”) He built the world’s tallest sugar cube tower (64 inches).

Rishi is so passionate about Guinness that he wrote in his will -- the longest will in the world, he says -- that he wants his record books used as the kindling at his cremation. (His wife, Bimla, claims to have the record for the shortest will: “All to son.”)

Rishi says his two sons have successful careers abroad, and they don’t think much of the Guinness obsession. But their accomplishments make Rishi more determined to prove that he counts too.

“My children feel that they are more important in the field of business and moneymaking so I have to show the family and the community that I am a professional person,” he said.

Some see broader explanations for India’s peculiar relationship with Guinness.

Santosh Desai, a columnist with the Times of India, says it’s an example of India’s hunger for Western approval, a defining trait in a country racing to achieve superpower status.

“We are desperate to be acknowledged by the world as being worthy,” Desai said. “We hunt for any signs that the external world recognizes us, and then we celebrate them.”

Even if it’s, well, Bajpai’s world-beating ear hair.

The Indian Express, a well-respected daily newspaper, called Bajpai “a proud man who has brought hairy recognition . . . not only to his locality and city but to the whole nation.”

But Desai’s theory -- that it’s all about self-esteem -- doesn’t explain why neighboring Pakistan doesn’t share India’s Guinness passion. The two were one country during British colonial times and have a lot in common, culturally, ethnically and linguistically.

In their zeal for posterity, some in India have taken the Guinness obsession to dangerous extremes.

In June, a doctor couple in southern India boasted that their 15-year-old son had become the world’s youngest surgeon by delivering a baby by Caesarean section -- a procedure they proudly filmed.

All three are awaiting trial on charges of endangering human life.

Last year, a 4-year-old boy attempted to run 43 miles to earn a spot in a local record book. Doctors stopped the child after 40 miles and found him to be undernourished and anemic.

His coach has been arrested and charged with torturing the child.

Amarilis Espinoza, a Guinness World Records spokeswoman, said the company doesn’t accept entries that encourage dangerous behavior. People across the world inquire about feats Guinness does not condone, but India’s can-do attitude makes it stand out, she said. Rather than just ask about unsafe records, in India “they just go ahead and do it,” she said.

For world-beaters who fail to reach the peaks of Guinness, there is the local Limca Book of Records, published by Coca-Cola, a junior-varsity league for India’s unlikely feats. (“Fastest Solving of Rubik’s Cube Blindfolded.”)

Another rung down is the website 4to40.com where people who haven’t made it into the record books can pay $50 to have their record posted among others. (“37 Men on a Bike.”)

Rishi is considering publishing his own book of records, one that will be more inclusive than the Guinness book.

But some in India say that as living standards soar, Guinness mania will peter out.

“What has replaced it are more legitimate and more conventional areas of competing,” said Desai, the columnist. “I think India will outgrow its desire to grow its nails faster than the rest of the world.”

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Some top spots

India holds 219 Guinness World Records, giving it 10th rank in the world. Here are some of them:

Largest cotton sculpture: A 7-foot-6 sculpture of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the Indian independence leader, made by Anant Narayan Khairnar.

Longest ear hair in the world: Radhakant Bajpai, measuring 5.19 inches.

Longest nonstop team two-wheeler ride: Har Parkash Rishi, Amarjeet Singh and Navjot Chadha, 1,001 hours, covering 19,241 miles.

Most published letters to newspaper editors: Subhash Chandra Agrawal, with 3,699 as of Jan. 31, 2006.

Most published letters to newspaper editors in a single year: Madhu Agrawal, with 447 in 2004.

Fastest 10 miles skipped: Vadivelu Karunakaren, 58 minutes in Chennai, India, on Feb. 1, 1990.

Fastest backward journey on foot: Arvind Morarbhai Pandya, 940 miles in 26 days, 7 hours.

Highest golf course: Yak golf course, 13,025 feet above sea level in east Sikkim, India.

Source: Guinness World Records /Associated Press