Mumbai: Around 60 women from Mumbai and Navi Mumbai are busy crocheting scarves. They’re not doing this because the region’s winters have become severe enough to need mufflers: they’re aiming to break a world record and also help the needy.
The participants are part of a larger group of around 270 all over the country who are collaborating to crochet a five-kilometre-long scarf, the longest ever by a team. The scarves they are making — some 2500 in all — will, if all goes well, be joined together in two-metre lengths, then sent to Chennai where, on May 14, the contributions from all over will be put together to set a Guinness World Record. After the display, and the confirmation of their record, the component scarves will be separated and distributed to the needy through NGOs and social organisations whose credentials have been pre-verified by the team.
The thread that binds
The entire exercise is the brainchild of Subashri Natarajan (45), a resident of chennai, who says she has had a lifelong passion for the craft and a desire to do something unique with it. When she came up with the idea of trying to break a world record, she started a Facebook group in August 2015 to bring together women in India and the Diaspora who are interested in crochet, called Mother India’s Crochet Queens. It has over 2500 members from all walks of life. “As the task was huge,” she says, “I thought of forming a group for the purpose. It became an instant hit with the passionate crocheters.” The huge task she refers to dates back to January 2016 [ https://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/Crochet-for-a-cause-and-a-record/article14010174.ece ], when the group collectively created a 11,148-square-metre blanket, beating the old record of 3,348 square metres. Then too, the blankets were distributed to the needy through NGOs. In that exercise, the members from the Mumbai region were the second largest contributors after Tamil Nadu.
Open to new members
This year, they are still open to new members joining in on the record-setting effort. Indian women and girls abobe 10, wherever they reside, are eligible to participate. As with the previous record, the participants pay for their yarn, and share the organising expenses and the cost of travel and hosting of a Guiness adjudicator. Those going to attend the big day will also pay for their own travel and stay.
Hooked on crochet
The Mumbai group has, according to Mallika Natarajan, the regional coordinator, “12 students and three faculty members of the SNDT University’s post-graduate department of textile and apparel design. The oldest member in the team is Kalyani Sivaraman, 85 years. She, with her daughter in law and granddaughter — three generations from the family! — are participating in the event.”
“I had even participated in the last Guinness record of making the largest crochet blanket,” Ms. Sivaraman says. “I was encouraged by my daughter-in-law, and it helped me revive my passion for crochet at the age of 84, after a gap of almost 40 years. I had lost touch with the art due to my service and household commitments. This year, even my granddaughter has joined in the record attempt. I feel proud to be able to inspire the current generation, who are addicted to electronic gadgets, and instead inculcate a commitment for social service.” She crochets for around two hours a day, and has so far completed nine scarves and plans to make another six by the deadline. “When I start crocheting I am immersed in the art and my mind is at rest without any wavering thoughts.”
