The World’s Oldest Man Dies in Rajasthan (another Indian world record lol…)

I found this strangely moving…I mean…perhaps it is a question of mind over matter? I mean, I think most of us assume we’re going to kick the bucket a lot earlier than this guy…but if you knew your body was going to be your home for that long…well personally it might encourage me to take better care of it…well I don’t mean to get all senti and stuff…but perhaps myths of immortality were just parables about longevity which defies logic…and maybe its the logic that kills you? I shall experiment. I’ll let you know in 70 years…stay tuned…

image and story from the telegraph

20 Aug 2008
Habib Miyan the world’s ‘oldest man’ dies in India

Habib Miyan played the clarinet in a maharajah’s orchestra before retiring 70 years ago.

However, there is much dispute over his actual age. Although he said he was 138 years old, his pension book showed him to be a mere stripling at 129 – and the Guinness Book of Records has been unable to verify his age at all.

Miyan, who lived in Jaipur in western India, had no birth certificate but has collected a state pension for decades. He once worked in the court of the king of Jaipur – Raja Man Singh, where he played in the wind section of the orchestra.

A crowd of thousands attended Miyan’s funeral – demonstrating the fame to which he had risen in the state of Rajasthan. He died after suffering fever and dysentery, his niece Munni told reporters.

Miyan sprang to the attention of the world in 1998, when a bank clerk called Rajesh Nagpal decided to look up the records of the venerable old man who had been collecting his pension for as long as anyone could remember.

Six years later he became one of the oldest people to make the pilgrimage to Mecca – a lifelong goal for the devout Muslim.

The visit was exceptional: Miyan, who had been blind for more than 50 years and suffered limited mobility, spent most of his time at home praying and telling stories to his enormous extended family of 140 people.

“If you treat your body well, the body will treat you well,” Miyan always said, according to a relative.

Hottest chile in the world: Also an Indian! :)

My brotherinlaw brought this bad boy home from a trip up North…I watched him ingest that radioactive creature. He can eat a lot of chillies without batting an eyelid. Pops them down like mints. But this thing actually brought tears to his eyes and smoke started coming out of his mouth. Of course he ate the same thing for dinner.

Researchers at New Mexico State University have discovered the world’s hottest chile pepper. Named Bhut Jolokia, it originates in Assam, India and has received the title of the world’s hottest chile pepper by the Guinness Book of World Records.Dr. Paul Bosland of the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences collected seeds of Bhut Jolokia when he visited India in 2001. For three years, he grew Bhut Jolokia plants so that he could sample enough seed to do the necessary field tests to check out the heat rating of the chile pepper. You might be wondering how researchers figure out which chile pepper is the hottest? Well, check this out – they use something called Scoville heat units (SHUs). Bhut Jolokia got a score of one million SHUs while the Red Savina, which is the previous holder of the world’s hottest chile pepper title, only scored a measly 577,000 SHUs. Mind you, the Red Savina is still very hot!

from weirdscience.com

Apparently if you eat enough of those Guatemalan peppers (which used to hold the title for hottest chile) you would start hallucinating…one can only imagine what would happen if you did the same thing with Bhut Jolokia….in one of my favorite episodes of the Simpsons where Johnny Cash gives a guest appearance as a coyote spirit guide….

At the annual Springfield Chili Cook-Off, Homer eats super-spicy chili made with a dangerous Guatemalan pepper grown by mental patients. The pepper has a powerful hallucinogenic effect and Homer wanders off into the darkest, strangest regions of his mind. Guided by a talking coyote, he goes on a voyage of self-discovery and realizes that he must find his soul mate. When he emerges from his fantastic trip, he returns home to Marge, who is furious at him for disappearing. Marge yells at Homer and tells him that she is not his soul mate, which sends Homer on another voyage to find out who is.

World’s Biggest Sandwich…also an Indian

Indian’s have been so busy making the biggest shirt and growing the longest ear hair that I think I’m going to have to devote a separate category to Indian world records….anyway here’s the sandwich story:

October 17, 2007

After a 10-hour effort by 42 employees, a Kerala resort Tuesday night prepared a 50-foot tall sandwich with an eye on breaking the world record for the tallest sandwich ever.Uday Samudra Leisure Resort at Kovalam claimed it broke the existing record for the tallest sandwich, held by O’Brien’s Irish Sandwich Bar that made a 42 feet tall sandwich April 25, 2003. This effort coincided with the World Food Day being celebrated today.

The monster sandwich has 350 slices of bread, each slice measuring 2.5 feet x 2.5 feet.The stuffing includes 45 kilograms each of cucumber and tomatoes, 40 kg each of boneless chicken, sausage, ham, apple and mayonnaise sauce, 25 kg of fish, 75 kg of lettuce leaves, 35 kg of onions and 150 kg of butter.

‘A German tourist got interested in this and she has brought over 25 children from a poor home and the kids are having fun at our place and are keenly watching the building of the sandwich,’ said Iyer.’Very soon this would be eaten by those who are here,’ added Iyer.

story via one of my favorite Desi sites…weird India

The Earl was the patron of Captain James Cook (the explorer who discovered the Hawai’ian Islands) and, because he was also the First Lord of the Admiralty during the American revolutionary war, he has sometimes been blamed by the British for the loss of the American Colonies. There is a story that he was an enthusiastic gambler and when he didn’t wish to leave the gaming table — or possibly just his desk — to go to dinner he would ask for someone to bring him some meat between a couple of slices of bread. Later, when others began asking for the same thing, they would say something like, “I’ll have what Sandwich is having…” Obviously it caught on, and people just started calling for “a Sandwich” when they wanted meat between two slices of bread. info from link

World’s largest shirt Made in India

Something about this “I have a bigger “X” than you do” Desi competativeness worries me a little bit. Its like “Hey world” you may have better health care, education, and more money but I have the longest ear hair, longest moustache, longest fingernails- you may have girth but we have length, yaaar. Even our history is longer than yours. In India our Gods used to throw nuclear missiles while yours were trying to invent fire with stones. And now we have a bigger shirt you bastards.” Well you know what they say about men with big shirts? They’re hiding juicy man-breasts and a pot belly. Anyway, yet another Guinness World record has been broken. Another freaking nerdy record.

Here’s the article on it from the Tribune: (I’ll put up a photo when one comes out in the papers)

A tailor-made tribute
by J. Sri Raman

It was on October 2, Gandhi Jayanti, that the giant task was reported to have been accomplished, making it a day to remember for a better reason than a mere birth anniversary. Embarrassing memories of a half-naked fakir receded further, as a shirt of Herculean proportions was given the final stitches on a sprawling ground somewhere in the country’s capital by an army of apparel-makers before the cameras of a popular television channel.

For those who came in late, it was nothing less than the world’s largest ever shirt in the making. Those crawling on it in diligent concentration, like Lilliputians on Gulliver, were carrying out the creative commands of a fashion designer of growing fame. The finished product, it was made known, would celebrate the merger between the avant-garde production unit and an upcoming export house. The designer spelt out the message for the media: “Indian fashion is ready to take on the world.”

Words that would make any Indian chest swell with pride. It can swell all it can, but cannot still equal the chest measurement of the shirt estimated at 170 feet, against a length of 160 feet. The collar is said to be as broad as the doorway of a five-star hotel, which is quite logical considering that the wearer of the shirt is unlikely to go in for any lesser board and lodging. About 5,000 metres of fabric has gone into the making of the product: not since the time of Draupadi, say historians, has so much of material been used to drape a single individual (even if it is only an imaginary one in the present case). And, keep your shirt on, this one has a row of 15 solid-wood buttons, each of a diameter of 35 inches, together making as light an attire as a dining table.

The idea of banishing the memory of Gandhi and backwardness is only secondary. The primary purpose of the event was to enter the Guinness Book of World Records. The country had some catching up to do in this regard. There has, in recent years, been a noticeable decline in the number of Indian achievers like those who grow far-reaching fingernails, who can cover themselves with cockroaches, who can vault to new heights in vada-eating. and so on and so forth. The shirt-makers are clothing the nation with a new dignity.

This is barely the beginning. If the giant shirt comes, can a jumbo sari be far behind? Or the largest ever Lucknavi kurta? These can be produced, to mark other corporate mergers and to claim more mentions in the Guinness that should more than make up for our place in the UNDP’s Human Development Index.

Come October 2, 2004, and it is clear what our fashion industry should create. Yes, the world’s largest loincloth. That will be a fitting answer to frivolous critics of the fantasy shirt.

And, maybe, an exhibition someday of “the emperor’s clothes” of the most extraordinary size?

story from link

Weird Desis and their Guiness World Records

Indians from all over India are obsessed with making the Guinness World Record’s Book. Why is this? The newspapers claim that it is because people from poor communities need something to a) inspire them b) break through otherwise existing heirarchies c) pass the time d) set themselves apart from a billion other Indians. Whatever the reasons are…people are putting a hell of a lot of effort doing fairly uncomfortable things like growing hair and nails out so long that they restrict movement and the capacity to fully participate in certain important acitivites (use your imagination). So here are some of the weird ones.

Shridhar Chillal holds the world record for the longest fingernails on a single hand, measuring 6.15 meters (20 feet 2.25 inches). Chillal’s longest nail is 4.25 feet. He last cut his nails in 1952.He is offering to sell his nails for $200,000.

image and quote from Indianpad.com

Radhakant Bajpai holds a record for growing his ear hair more than five inches long.

image from link

In Ahmedabad, India lives a man who has not cut his moustache for over 22 years.Badamsinh Juwansinh Gurjar had his moustache measured at 12 1/2 feet in 2004 giving him the honor of having the world’s longest moustache.

image and quote from link

Guinness Rishi – yes, his name is Guinness; more on that later – submitted the ketchup record after downing a bottle in 39 seconds. Rishi said he breaks records – his business card lists 19 feats – to distinguish himself in one of the world’s biggest crowds.
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. ”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, a 66-year-old partner in an auto parts factory. His crowded bookshelves are filled exclusively with record books from years past. He also hires himself out as a consultant to would-be record breakers.

image and quote from sify.com

ALL HAIL…The Infinite Powers of…MOUSTACHE

images from world jat raja rohit gupta

In this increasingly sanitized media landscape of clean-shaven men…we have forgotten the old ways…Remains of the Desi is here to remind you of…the powers of…moustache…Salvador Dali…talented man-yes- but did you ever see him paint WITHOUT his moustache? …Frida Kahlo…also a great artist…and she never painted herself ONCE WITHOUT a moustache….Albert Einstein-genius physicist-yes-but have you ever seen him think WITHOUT his moustache?…What about Neitszche? Freddy Mercury….Santana…Hendrix…ever hear them play WITHOUT moustaches… Charlie Chaplin…Groucho Marx..funny guys….ever hear them tell a joke WITHOUT the moustache? Hercule Poirot…clever detective…never solved a case WITHOUT his moustache and of course his moustache wax….Asterix and Obelix…comic book heros…drank the magic potion-yes-but never WITHOUT their moustaches….even little Dogmatix has a tache!

And in India the moustache has as many styles and histories as there are dialects and shifting geographies….of course the Rajasthani moustache has a unique reputation…and there are regular moustache competitions…

But in Bollywood the tache is getting shaved and wiped off except for a few brave men…who dare to grow hair…among them are…Amir Khan…who put on his tache for Mangal Pande and never took it off… Makrand Deshpande…one of the great character actors in the business and Anil Kapur…the Burt Reynolds of Bollywood…

So before you remove the fuzzy fur from your upper lip…ladies..gents..lets all take a moment of silence to give respect…to…the MOUSTACHE…….

A tache with telekinetic power…just one flick…and KAZAAAM!

By the powers of grayskull (Jai Channakeshava)….I have the POWER…and I flick my moustache to prove it!

I leave you with this final thought for the day….ladies…before you tell your man to shave that dirty caterpillar off his upper lip….watch the following educational video… and perhaps you too will DARE TO GROW HAIR…all hail the tache!