It doesn't take much brain wracking to spell the word 'sift'. Shishir Hathwar, however, didn't bat an eyelid as he spelt it in reverse within a split second to break a world record. 

 

The 27-year-old government employee from Bangalore spelt 40 words backwards within a minute to break a previous Guinness record set by an American, who spelt 35 words in reverse in a minute. 

 

Blaring music from the Saarang festival dimmed to broken thuds inside the IIT-Madras library as Hathwar broke the record in a sparsely-filled room. When he completed the fete, the small group of students who had congregated to watch him broke into applause. 

 

"People often ask me how I do it. I don't know the answer. My mind just works in a strange way," said Hathwar, breaking into a smile. Breaking records is not new to Hathwar. In 2011, he clinched the world record for the "fastest backwards spelling of 50 words" in 1 minute and 22.53 seconds. In 2012, he set a new high by spelling 30 randomly chosen words in reverse in a minute. "This record was recently broken. So I decided to step into the arena again," he said. 

 

In keeping with the guidelines issued by the Guinness World Records, two officials from the Tamil Nadu Athletic Association were present at the venue to keep a tab on the time. He spelt 13 four-letter and six-letter words and 14 eight-letter words. Some of the words included quiver, humanity, Botany, fumigate, volume, filament, cylinder, sapphire and appendix. 

 

A voracious reader, Hathwar recognised his talent when he was 16. "I read a story about a man who broke the record for reading 20 words in reverse in a minute. I thought to myself, 'Hey, I could do a lot more than that'. But it took some time for me to gather the courage to go in front of an audience," said Hathwar, who started reading books at the age of three, when his peers were still learning alphabets. 

 

He attributes his talent to the way he visualises a page. "I scan through a page before actually reading it. If there is a spelling mistake on the page, I just know it while scanning," he said. Hathwar can also read and write Hindi, Kannada, Sanskrit and speak Tulu. 

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