Dubai breaks another world record

(From left) Surender Kandhari, Gurudwara chairman; Masud Husain, Canadian Ambassador to UAE; Philip Parman, the UK Ambassador and Kamal Vachani, Group Director of Al Maya, with the certificate.- Photo by Neeraj Murali

With the year 2017 declared as the Year of Giving, a Sikh temple in Dubai decided to give back more to the community in a big and memorable way. And they did it. The temple named Gurudwara Gurunanak Darbar served free continental breakfast titled "Breakfast for Diversity" - to the maximum number of people from diverse nationalities, entering the Guinness World Record on Thursday.
To be precise - 600 people from 101 countries enjoyed the hour-long breakfast wearing their traditional outfits, on the premises of the temple in Jebel Ali.
People from different parts of the city flocked to the Jebel Ali Gardens and filled a temporary tent made for hosting the marathon breakfast event.
The officials from the Guinness Book of World Records confirmed that the gurudwara broke the previous record of 55 nationalities having a continental breakfast, organised by Nutella at the Milan Expo in Italy, on September 13, 2015.
Entry for the breakfast was through prior registration and included schoolchildren, diplomats, government officials and people from different walks of life and the chief guest at the event was Indian Ambassador to the UAE, Navdeep Singh Suri.
The gurudwara, which is known for serving free meals to all visitors through its community kitchen, caters to over 50,000 Sikh devotees in the UAE.
"Sikhism has always embraced diversity as it has been part of our faith and belief, that we are all human beings to be treated with respect. The Gurudwara has been spearheading charity and volunteer work not only for the
Indian community but for the entire UAE community as well. We feel blessed to give in any form, as this is our selfless service to the society," said Surender Kandhari, chairman of Gurudwara Guru-nanak Darbar, Dubai.
The event aimed at spreading the idea of peace, tolerance and communal harmony along with the world record a new Guinness Record, saw the young and old cheer alike and dance together to the tune of Punjabi songs, after the Guinness World Record officials made the historic announcement.
"The Gurudwara serves approximately 1,000 meals on weekdays and 10,000 meals on weekends or holidays. It has served free meals to over 4 million people since its inception. This has been part of the Gurudwara's service to the community and their way of embracing diversity," Kandhari told Khaleej Times.  "The gurudwara's community kitchen serves free food to all visitors irrespective of their
nationality, faith, caste, or creed. The gurudwara welcomes visitors from all faiths and of all nationalities, as 'interfaith understanding' has always been one of the pillars of the Sikhism faith,"  the Gurudwara officials added.
Talal Omar, country manager - MENA of Guinness World Records, said: "We are proud to support the Gurudwara Gurunanak Darbar  in breaking a fantastic rec-ord that brings together people of multi-faiths. We encourage record breaking activities that encourage all human efforts, particularly those that bring people together".
sathish@khaleejtimes.com