Guinness World Record holder Shridhar Chillal finally has his nails cut
- Published
Do you ever get annoyed when your parents want you to cut your fingernails? Well, this is Shridhar Chillal - and he has been growing the fingernails on his left hand for a massive 66 YEARS. On 17 November 2014, he set the Guinness World Record for having the longest fingernails on a single hand. His right hand's nails were trimmed so that he could work and do daily tasks. According to the Guinness World Records, when the nails on his left hand were last measured, they were 909.6cm long in total, which is about the same length as a London bus!
But now look! He has had them cut and they have gone on display at Ripley's Believe it or Not! museum of weird and wonderful things in New York in the US. Because the nails were very heavy and he carried them around with him for so long, he now has permanent problems with his left hand - even though the nails are gone. He cannot open his hand out from a closed position or flex his fingers, as you can see in this picture.
This is the moment that he finally said goodbye to his record-breaking nails. They were so thick that they needed to use a special cutting tool to remove them (which you would never use to cut your nails normally - so don't do this at home!). When asked by Guinness World Records in 2015 how his nails affected his life, he said they were extremely fragile and he needed to take special care while he was sleeping.
Now, here he is admiring his record-breaking nails on display. But why did Shridhar grow them so long in the first place? Well, he says that when he was 14, he was playing outside his school with a friend and accidentally knocked into his teacher who had grown the nail on their little finger very long as a cultural tradition. He broke the teacher's nail and they got very upset about it, so Shridhar decided to take on the challenge of growing his own nails.
When asked about having them cut, Shridhar said: "When I had my nails, I took very special care of [them] because nails are a very delicate part of our body. I took care of them for a lifetime. I spent 66 years of my life on my nails. When I decided to cut my nails, it was difficult for me to make this decision, but when I realised that after cutting my nails, my nails will be at Ripley's Believe It or Not! and they're going to maintain it very nicely and for a lifetime, then I felt like I was doing the right decision and that's why I decided to cut my nails."
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