The Crow here for c4ocradio.com
http://Shridhar Chillal, of Pune, India, hadn’t cut the fingernails on his left hand since 1952, it’s the end of an era for the man who holds the world record for Longest Fingernails on One Hand. Chillal decided to see how long he could grow them when at age 14, a teacher got mad at him for breaking a nail, and the Guinness Book of World Records didn’t even exist back then in 1952. He decided to cut away an important part of his life earlier this week when he flew to New York to have the nails removed by a doctor. The 82-year-old record holder managed to get his nails to grow a collective length of about 29 feet, 10 inches before being officially honored by Guinness in November 2014. Chillal told Patch New York through an interpreter. “Now, forever my nails will be remembered and forever my nails will be seen by people from all over the world.” “I was a little bit scared that my celebrity favor would go now, but today after coming here I realize that after this I have become a real celebrity,”
There were other reasons why Chillal was willing to cut away an important part of his life: “I am in pain,” he told Guinness World Records. “With every heart beat all five fingers, my wrist, elbow and shoulder are hurting a lot, the collective weight of the nails has made it impossible for Chillal to open his hand from a closed fist position or flex his fingers, and at the tip of the nail there’s a burning sensation always.” In 2015, he told HuffPost India how hard it was to sleep with his long nails. “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 doctor used a hand-held power grinder in a process that took about 20 minutes, according to Patch New York. Chillal had attempted to cut his supersized nails by himself with a manual pair of clippers, but that didn’t work. No word on how Chillal is adapting to the lighter load on his left hand, but we believe life has become a lot easier for him in many ways.
The Crow is a contributing writer for http://c40cradio.com/listenlive
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Guinness Book of World Records