Bihu, Assam's biggest cultural festival, made it to the coveted Guinness Book of World Records on Thursday.
A total of 11,304 young girls and boys, attired in traditional mekhela sadors and dhoti kurta respectively, performed the Bihu dance together at the Sarusajai Sports complex here on Thursday evening in the presence of authorities of the London-headquartered Guinness Book of World Records.
They danced to the tunes of Bihu folk songs, dhols (drums), pepas (traditional flute) and other folk instruments as the Bihu music rend the airs in the sports complex. Thousands of viewers witnessed the cultural spectacle.
Minutes later, over 3,000 dhulias (Bihu drummers) also displayed their musical skills together and performed similarly on the same ground to set the second record in the Guinness Book.
"Today, we have achieved the Guinness World Record in both Bihu dance and in dhol (drums) performance," Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced soon after the two separate performances.
Sarma too was seen shaking his legs on the stage to the tunes of Bihu numbers.
Assam achieved the feat a day before the beginning of the Rongali Bihu, the most important cultural festival of the state having diverse ethnic communities. Rongali Bihu marks the beginning of Bohag, the first month of the Assamese calendar, which is on Friday.
On Friday, the Bihu dancers and drummers will also make a similar performance at the same ground in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will visit Assam to inaugurate and lay foundation stones of several projects worth over Rs 13,400 crore.
The PM will inaugurate Assam's first AIIMS at Changsari, about 30 km from Guwahati before attending the Bihu performance.
Guinness officials are likely to hand over the certificates for the twin records to Modi.
CM Sarma on Wednesday said the purpose of organising the event was to promote Bihu at the global stage and thereby push tourism in the state. "Thousands of tourists flock to the annual Hornbill festival of Nagaland. We can also similarly attract the tourists to our annual Rongali Bihu festival," Sarma told reporters on Wednesday.
The dancers and the drummers came from across Assam and practiced at the Sarusajai Sports complex in the past three days for the final performance on Thursday.
With over 1,400 performers, Dibrugarh district in eastern Assam had the maximum representation while South Salmara district had the lowest representation with just 20 performers.
The state government on Wednesday announced that Rs 25,000 would be provided to each of the performers and the trainers, apart from Rs 10,000 earlier provided for procuring the garments and other essentials.