The Flag Made of People: Chennai, 2014

Forty-three thousand, eight hundred and thirty

Every hand in this photograph holds its own tricolour, and the crowd blurs into one — which is precisely the trick behind the flag’s most crowded record.

In December 2014, on a ground in Chennai, 43,830 people took mapped positions in saffron, white and green until, seen from above, they were not holding the flag — they were the flag. Guinness World Records certified it the largest human national flag ever formed: the tricolour rendered, for one afternoon, entirely in citizens.