Kuzhalmannam Broke His Own Record
Kuzhalmannam G. Ramakrishnan, mridangam artiste, completed 301 hours of a marathon performance at the Nehru College of Aeronautics and Applied Sciences in Coimbatore on Wednesday. Kuzhalmannam G. Ramakrishnan, mridangam artiste from Palakkad, has played the mridangam 301 hours non-stop, successfully breaking his own record of a 101-hour non-stop performance. Having started the performance at the Nehru College of Aeronautics on August 1, the artiste concluded it on August 13. “I have been practising mridangam ever since I was 10 and the sessions have lasted for hours together,” said Mr. Ramakrishnan. Even with no sleep and very little food, he said he never felt any physical discomfort during the performance. “Encouragement from the audience is very important for an artiste. The audience was very appreciative,” he added.He performed a five-day mridangam marathon in 2005, which earned him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records and the Limca Book of Records.
Though Mr. Ramakrishnan plays the tabala and ghatam, his personal preference is the mridangam. He runs a centre for music in Kerala. He has performed in over 5,000 stages and has won several awards such as the kalaa praveena, mridanga vaadya kalaa thilakam, vaadya samrat, and kalaa vallabha. Mr. Ramakrishnan also has a passion for painting.
