Man has not cut fingernails for over 60 years

AGENCY REPORT 

   

 

An Indian man, Shridhar Chillal, hasn’t cut his left fingernails in 60 years, making him the world record holder in that strange regard.

The craze to grow the fingernails which now has a cumulative length of 909.6 cm for Chillal, started when he was still in school and was punished for breaking a teacher’s fingernail. From that point on he vowed never to cut his fingernails again in memory of the treatment he got from the enraged teacher.

Today, the Indian’s thumb nail is the longest in the world at two meters and curls into a tight coil at the end. The middle finger nail comes a close second at 186.6 cm. The ring finger nail measures 181.6 cm, the little finger nail is 179.1 cm while the index nail stands at 164.5 cm. but keeping such tremendously long fingernails has come at a price for Chillal.

“I can’t move much, so every half an hour or so I wake up and move my hand to the other side of the bed,” the Indian said. “First my family members opposed, then teachers were opposed but I decided from that point after my teacher punished me for breaking her fingernail, that I would never cut my nails again.”

Apart from criticisms from family members and difficulty in sleeping peacefully at night, Chillal, according to odditycentral.com, has faced even more challenges since he started on his bizarre journey.

“No one would wash my clothes and I had to wash them by hand,” he recalled. “Finding a job was also difficult as no one was ready to employ me. When I was to get married, no one was ready to marry me. I saw nearly 10 to 12 girls. If the girl agreed to marry, her parents would say I would strangle their daughter’s neck and refuse. If the parents agreed, the girl would say she would not marry such a dirty person.”

Things got better with time and Chillal eventually got married to his brother’s sister-in-law at age 29. He then cut off the nails on his right hand and decided only to keep growing the ones on his left, just so he could lead a somewhat normal life. He took up photography for a while, and even pursued it as a career. But now that he’s nearly 80 years old, he wants to finally have his nails cut and preserve them.

“I can tell everyone now with pride about my record. When I am on my travels, people will recognise me as a Guinness World Records title holder,” he said. “Now that I am 78 years old, my nails have become much more delicate due to my age, so my wish is to preserve these nails in a museum.”