Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar/India: It all started as an ambitious project to make Navratri more meaningful. Celebrating it turned out to be a landmark achievement in Gujarat. Under the leadership of Vishal Makwana, NIF Global Ahmedabad & Gandhinagar has created the world’s largest Chaniya Choli that stands at an astounding length of 72 feet and is 18 feet wide.
The masterpiece has achieved formal entry in World Book of Records, and has been honored by Chief Minister of Gujarat, Bhupendrabhai Patel. That intention influenced all aspects of the project. Instead of buying new material, the team decided to do it in a more sustainable way and re-use old sarees, which also made the local community become part of the action.
Students walked house by house, gathering sarees in families within the nearby neighborhoods. The chaniya choli was made using over 1100 reused sarees, weighing approximately 500 kg, and took nearly 60 days to complete. The sheer size of the project was impressive, but the challenge was the shared enthusiasm amongst those involved.
The students, mentors, and volunteers sewed, sorted, measured, and assembled the piece during a period of one month. It took care, time, and attention to detail to handle the logistics of dealing with materials, color matching, stitching strength, structure, and so forth.
The team had to use 3 cranes, one of them 130 feet high, to carry and set the final piece to assemble and display it. Throughout the whole process of the 7-day display to the people, 3 cranes were used to help the garment against adverse wind effects. It remained for the public to view in the same place for a straight seven days.
