North India Chillin' with Dylan

Meghalaya on Friday set a world record for the largest ever guitar ensemble, overtaking the existing Guinness Book of World Records held by Kansas city in the US for such an ensemble, organisers said.

"A total of 1,730 guitarists strummed in unison to create history. We are simply ecstatic over this show that went off without a glitch," Aiban Mawkhrow, general secretary of the Meghalaya Tourism Development Forum, that organised the event, said.

The group, “Rhythms of Meghalaya” topped the previous Guinness record of a band of 1,721 guitarists at Kansas in the U.S. The guitarists strummed Bob Dylan’s popular number “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.” The lead guitarists were drawn from bands in Meghalaya, Assam, Nagaland and Mizoram.

The hills of north-east India may seem an unlikely place to reverberate to the tones of nearly 2,000 people playing a Bob Dylan classic.