UAE painting makes it to the Guinness

This inimitable idea was conceived and organised by K V Prakash, a lawyer by profession and a social worker, who wanted the younger generation to welcome the new millennium leaving behind hatred and animosity.

The event organised from September 1999 to March 2000 took about 526 hours of painting.

Prakash, who was at the Press club in Kochi on Monday, said that children stretched their imagination about love and friendship onto the canvas and perceived a simple truth- love and be loved. “ Several themes on United Nations, Red Cross Society and Olympics which contribute to the world peace were depicted on the canvas, ” said, Prakash, a Keralite, who is now living in Abu Dhabi.

The project was accomplished under the patronage of UAE Minister for Education Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan with the support of the Cultural Foundation, Abu Dhabi, and fully financed by K Muraleedharan, Managing Director, Southern Fried Chicken Group of companies. “The cost of the total project came up to Rs 40 lakh, ” he said.

The Guinness Book of World Records team having audited the canvass as 498.76 metres and width 80.6 cm declared that the painting had beaten the record achieved in United Kingdom in 1998, depicting 5,339 carp fishes.

Prakash said that his next endeavour is to collect signatures from all the school children in Middle-East for an everlasting peace in the region.

"Selected school children will fly in a special aircraft to the United Nations office in New York and present a memorandum with these signatures to General Secretary Kofi Annan, ” he said.