A man with the longest nail, cut his nails grow for 66 years

Since the age of 14, this Indian man had refused to touch the nails of his left hand.

Shridhar Chillal is a world recordman for a particular longest nail. The 82-year-old from Pune, India, had not cut his fingernails for 66 years.

The result was rather disarming: the cartilages, which hardened and thickened over the years, looked like long, thin horns nearly a meter in length that ended in a kind of spiral. A few years ago the octogenarian had even experienced his moment of glory by entering the Guinness Book of Records.

And last, on Wednesday, as part of a nail clipping ceremony held at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in New York, specializing in the exhibition of unusual objects, Shridhar Chillal separated from his nails.

66 years gone in minutes

In just a few minutes, and with the help of a small circular saw, the “executioner” put an end to decades of anatomical experimentation.

The nails should be exposed to the public in this museum. As the Guardian reports, put together, all nails reach eight meters, the length of a London bus.

As he explained, still in the British media, this idea came to him from a reflection of one of his teachers to whom he had, when he was 14 years old, broken a nail.

The latter then explained to him that he could not understand the attention needed to avoid breaking a fingernail. Taking his teacher at his word, Shridhar Chillal also explained that even in the middle of the night, he had to stay still so as not to break them.