Pune, June 2 (FN Representative) Manjushree Oak, a renowned singer and a disciple of Pandit Hridaynath Mangeshkar, has become the Guinness World Record holder for ‘Most Languages Sung In a Concert’. She attempted the record on October 10, 2019 at the Yashwantrao Chavan Auditorium, where she sang 121 songs for 13 and half hours in 121 Indian languages, dialects and mother tongues during a program titled ‘Amrutwani – Anekta Me Ekta’. Just a few days back, she was informed by the Guinness Book of World Records management that her attempt to create a record has been accepted and approved and she will receive a certificate soon. Before this Oak successfully registered multiple records in the India Book of Records and Asia Book of Records in 2017 and 2018. Expressing her feeling on this achievement Oak said, “I have been learning Indian classical music since my childhood and since then doing something for the country though music was in my mind”.
Her wish was realised when Shree Yashlakshmi Art with help from Padmanabh Thakar organized th concert ‘Amrutwani – Anekta Me Ekta’. It is said that the language changes every 20 miles in India. This diversity fascinated me while considering this subject for the record. According to an estimate about 1800 languages and dialects are used in India which have geographical, social and cultural influence of the areas where these languages are spoken.” “The year 2019 was declared as the year for the indigenous languages by the United Nations, I was more than delighted to present this unique feature of India ‘Unity in Diversity’ through my record attempt. While selecting languages and the songs from them, reports from the Census office proved beneficial because of which I could prepare well for this record attempt. “The 121 languages that I chose to sing were primarily from the north and southern parts of the country. Some languages from the north east part of the country were also selected in addition to some poems for which the music was composed by a few composers. The range of songs included traditional, folk, devotional, patriotic and soul songs”, she added.