Nepal man could be shorter than Filipino Guinness World Record holder

Chandra Bahadur Dangi claims to stand at 56cm, which would be almost 4cm smaller than Junrey Balawing from the Philippines.

Chandra Bahadur Dangi, a 72-year-old from Nepal claims to be the world’s shortest man, a record currently held by Junrey Balawing from the Philippines.

SURUNGA, NEPAL // Pilloried by neighbours, laughed at in freakshows 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 centimetres, 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 59.93cm.

Guinness World Records experts confirmed last week they are to travel to Dangi's village in the impoverished south-western valleys of Dang district to measure the pensioner, who says he weighs just 12 kilos. If his measurements prove correct, he would be smaller than Mr Balawing but would also be the shortest human adult ever documented, taking the accolade from India's Gul Mohammed, who was measured at 57cm before he died in 1997 aged 40.

Mr Dangi said 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," Mr Dangi said at a religious festival in Surunga, a town on the banks of the sacred Kankai river 280 kilometres south-east 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 soulmate.

"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 that begins to show signs in the womb.

Mr 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.

"They would treat me as a toy," he told the Kathmandu-based Republica newspaper.

Mr Dangi, who scrapes a living weaving the "Naamlo", a traditional jute band used for carrying heavy weights, has already become something of a celebrity in southern Nepal.