A leading garment firm here has claimed to have woven the world's longest saree in a non-stop 18-day effort.
The 2,007 feet saree was made recently for adorning the presiding deity of Parshwa Padmavathi Jain Temple in Krishnagiri in Tamil Nadu, P R Kumar, managing partner of city-based Kumaran Silks, said.
The 'kumkum' (maroon) coloured saree, handed over free of cost to the temple authorities, has already been draped around the deity.
The Guinness Book of World Records has registered it under the tag 'the Longest Saree, offered to Goddess Padmavathi', he said.
Kumar said it was an onerous task taking up the work considering the challenges that lay ahead.
"We thought about for a while before taking up the order but later took it as a prestige issue and decided to go ahead," he said.
"First of all, members of the Jain community are not supposed to use silk but to give the rich look of silk, we went in for Silkon, a thread closely resembling silk, which is rarely used in weaving sarees," he said.
Kumar said his firm was given a deadline of 21 days to deliver the saree but it was completed in A leading garment firm here has claimed to have woven the world's longest saree in a non-stop 18-day effort.
Three experts were employed and the machine was made to run 24 hours a day, with each of them working in eight hour shifts, Kumar said.
"Even a power fluctuation would result in the thread giving away which means we have to set things again and start all over," Kumar said.
"Lest a power failure should destroy the entire process, we decided to run the machines with the help of generators," he added.
The packaging of the product was important and it was literally 'on a roll' since it started taking shape. "The only way to keep it going was to keep it rolled," he said.
Kumar said he did not wish to reveal how much money was spent on the saree.
He has no qualms that the Guinness record was credited to the temple authorities.
"They perceived the idea, we only produced it," he said with a smile.
"It was a test to our capability and we did not want to sell it for a price since it was meant for a deity," he added.
Weaving long sarees of late has become a prestige issue among leading textile firms in South India. Last year Kochi-based 'Seematti' had come out with a 1,585 ft saree. In 2005, 'Pothys', another firm in Chennai, had woven a 1,276 ft saree.
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