Mixing music, maths to enter record books

MUMBAI:  Music and mathematics may be poles apart but a 45-year-old man has made a mark in both - Guinness world record for non-stop singing and Limca record for memorising square roots.
    
And, Thomas Vijayan from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu accomplished both feats in a span of one year without formal training in either field.
    
He found a place in the Guinness Book of World Records after a 72-hour marathon singing session at Bangalore in February last year.
    
A few months later, he made it to the Limca Book of Records for "reproducing from memory all perfect squares of numbers between one and ten lakh" in the presence of IIT professors from Chennai.
    
Vijayan, who has a bachelor's degree in Theology from an institute in Bhopal, said "it was my inner inspiration to do something great and I've worked hard for it."
    
Without any musical background or specialist training, Vijayan practised two years for achieving the feat by singing continuously and for a similar period for memorising the squares.
    
"I enjoy hymns and Christmas Carols and sang over 1,000 of them in six different languages to achieve the record," he said here.
    
"I also do not use any trick to calculate and give you the squares of numbers, its pure memorising," a proud Vijayan, who has written a book on memorising for school children said.
    
Vijayan, however says he "has achieved enough" and will not attempt for more records now. "I'll devote my time for bridging the communal divide by singing songs from all the faiths," he said.