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Updated Friday, February 10, 2012 12:13 am TWN, By Prakash Mathema, AFP



	In a picture taken on Monday, Feb. 6, Chandra Bahadur Dangi, left, a 72-year-old Nepali who claims to be the world's shortest man at 56 centimeters (22 inches) in height, sits next to a child in Jhapa district, southeastern Nepal. (AFP) Enlarge Photo

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Nepali aims to claim title as 'world's shortest man'

SURUNGA, Nepal -- Pilloried by neighbors, laughed at in freak shows and spurned by the women he admired from afar, Chandra Bahadur Dangi has always seen his tiny stature as a curse.

But the 72-year-old Nepali, who claims to stand at just 56 centimeters (22 inches), is on the brink of life change as significant as a lottery win as experts prepare to test his claim to be the shortest man in history.

Until now, Junrey Balawing from the Philippines has held the title of the world's smallest living man with a height of 59.93 cm.

Guinness World Records experts confirmed last week they are to travel to Dangi's village in the impoverished southwestern valleys of Dang district to measure the pensioner, who says he weighs just 12 kilos (26 pounds).

If his measurements prove correct, he would eclipse Balawing but would also be the shortest human adult ever documented, taking the accolade from India's Gul Mohammed, who was measured at 57 cm before he died in 1997 aged 40.

Dangi told AFP in his first interview with Western media that recognition at the end of his life would be some compensation for years of hardship he has had to endure.

“I think things will be better now. I hope that I will be famous all over the world,” Dangi said at a religious festival in Surunga, a town on the banks of the sacred Kankai river 280 kilometers (174 miles) southeast of Kathmandu.

“I want to visit foreign countries and meet people from around the world.”

The pensioner, who was orphaned at 12 and has five normal-sized brothers, says he has never experienced romance and is yet to find his soul mate.

“I was short since my childhood. So, I couldn't find a woman to marry when I was young. Then I just gave up on the idea of marriage. At this old age, I'm not interested in marriage anymore.”

The cause of his stunted growth remains a mystery although many holders of the “world's shortest man” crown have suffered from primordial dwarfism, a condition which begins to show signs in the womb.

Dangi says relatives would parade him as a freak at fetes and festivals when he was younger, refusing to share with him any of the cash they earned.

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