रामच्या आईचे मनोगत!!: An attempt to break Guinness World Record for Chalk Street-Art

As a child I was always fascinated by flower, actually I was crazy. I will directly go to collect flowers like 'bakul', 'buch' these are super fragrant flowers. I soon as flower fells of these giant trees, we have to run and get it so no one else gets it :)

In couple of incidents I was so lost by collecting these that I didnt realize that I dint tell my parents so they were looking for me everywhere and once have to file police compliant. Loved to draw flowers on paper, in form of rangoli, collect greeting cards and what not.

With these flower rangolis, I started loving the art of rangoli and started drawing giant ones. When I was 12, I won a prize in huge ragoli competition and got award by famous marathi actor 'Rahul Solapurkar'. I kept on drawing after that.

When I got married, on my first Diwali visit I drew again a huge flower rangoli and decorated with diyas. Everyone loved it and it was published in local news paper too.

After coming to USA I kind of missed it, so started drawing it with chalk. Usually I will draw huge flower rangolis on Holi.

Then when the pandemic started, everyone was cheering each other by doing chalk art on driveway. That time I decided to draw a huge flower at our cul-de-sac to cheer up everyone including myself. That was spring time and it was also to welcome spring.

After drawing that 25*25ft small drawing, I was curious to see if there is any Guinness world record and didn't find anything so I applied to see if I can get one. They got back me saying we have a street-art category and you can challenge that. I filed my application for that in June 2021.

After that I started studying the rules and there were many requirements to fulfil. Very important was, you need to get permission to draw on public road.

I went to town's various departments but didn't get definite answer for permission so my neighbor suggested to ask church in town who has big parking lot. I got the permission from them and before the event surveyor said he can't do the measurements.

After that the event has been postponed at least 10 times in last 2 years due to constraints on location, weather, no of witnesses, surveyor availability and my availability. There were multiple factors to come together to get this done.

I did trial drawing in 10*15ft frame on our driveway last year and was eagerly waiting for main event. From that I calculated how many chalks and how much time it will take. It looked like its going to take 16 hrs if I do continuously. Kids asked me to add breaks since it will be impossible to do continuously from one's physical strength and getting witnesses.

Finally it was decided to do on 30th September 2023 and on 28th weather was not looking great so I decided to do that on 1st and 2nd Oct since weather was looking perfect and luckily got all the witnesses and surveyor lined up.

This time to be on safter side I planned for back up witnesses and one extra surveyor too. I also ordered double chalks incase. I was more worried about the white chalks and did calculations for that to come up with no of chalks needed. I went to all the craft shops and collected extra white chalks.

After this preparation, we went to venue on 29th September at Evergreen walk in our town, for which we had offcial permission and drew the boarder. The day when event was planned on 1st Oct, we reached there at 8:30 and all the area was washed off with power wash and there was no way it will be dry by 9. There was some miscommunication between the authorities and the person who washed off the area. I started crying. I asked mayor of our town if I can get the permission to draw at my cul-de-sac just opposite to my house instead. She said as long as you dont block anyone's driveway we should be good.

We came back and did the border at our cul-de-sac to get it going. Fortunaltely the rectagle fitted perfectly without blocking anyone's driveway. After that I started drawing, it was one hour late than the plan. We also got lot of snacks and set up shead for them so that witnesses are comfortable. Took off from work, me and my husband. My husband was taking care of all the recordings, forms and all the supporting functions like providing water food to me, moral support.

After drawing snow, it was hard to scale first tree and had to go through hard time to imagine. My son Jai helped through showing me how it looks through drone to decide where to stop and start. Lot of efforts went into preparing for it and get it done.

Event: Event started on 1st Oct in the morning at 10:08 am and ended at 12:01 pm on 3rd October 2023. During these 3 days there were 2 witnesses constanly present when I was drawing. There were breaks during drawing some planned and some unplanned. Whole event was video taped. On 3rd Oct 11am NBC came to cover the event. First Surveyor Mr.Kojo came when I was done drawing and took the measurements and it was more than planned so I was very very happy. Many people visited the drawing and shared their happiness. During all three days people were coming and cheering me.

Second Surveyor came on 5th Oct in the evening and did the measurements. From last experiences I planned 2 surveyors in case one decides to drop. Second surveyor also confirmed the measurements were more than what I planned and very very close to first surveyor's measurements. Overall the event went smoothly with lots of planning and support from friend and family, but the journey to this point was not easy.