SHIP and the World's Longest Fingernails
In 1952, 14 year-old Shridhar Chillal was playing outside his school with his friend.
One of their teachers had grown out his pinky fingernail as a cultural statement; some say it historically denotes a member of the upper class in Indian and other Asian traditions. Meaning, therefore, that it was a point of pride.
Chillal and his fingernails as they appeared in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1983.
As Chillal and his friend roughhoused, they accidentally knocked into that teacher, and as a result broke off his pinky fingernail.
The teacher beat and scolded Chillal. When Chillal and his friend asked what had warranted the punishment, the teacher explained to them the work and care it took to grow out a fingernail like he had — something he said that Chillal couldn’t possibly understand.
Flash forward 63 years, to when in 2015, Chillal was officially certified by the Guinness World Record for having the longest fingernails on a single hand ever, after first appearing in the record book in 1979.
His fingernails had a combined length of 909.6 cm, or 358.1 in.
“Unless we grew long nails,” Chillal told Guinness World Records, recounting what the teacher had told him, “we could never understand the kind of care required not to break them. After that we took it as a challenge and started to grow our own nails.”
Chillal when his fingernails were officially certified. // Photo from Guinness World Records
Some might wonder if a teenage grudge justifies over half a century without a nail trimming. It seems a severe and laborious endeavor to be essentially done out of spite.
After all, life with the fingernails wasn’t easy for Chillal. His family and teachers strictly opposed it. “My family really didn’t like it,” he says. “No one would wash my clothes, and I had to wash them by hand. Finding a job was also difficult, as no one was ready to employ me.”
Marriage was also a problem, with women and/or their parents that Chillal met refusing, often out of disgust. He finally did marry at 29, but the inconvenience didn’t stop then.
Over time, the overgrown fingernails began to take a physical toll on Chillal. Their weight caused permanent disfigurement in his left hand, as well as pain, and by 2000, he told The Guardian “I’m much older now, so I can’t take this inconvenience much longer.” Referencing his sleeping troubles, he said, “I can't move, can't turn sides, can't pull over the covers.” Similarly, he told Guinnness, “I am in pain. With every heartbeat all five fingers, my wrist, elbow and shoulder are hurting a lot and at the tip of the nail there’s a burning sensation always.”
All that to say that finally, in 2018, he decided to have the fingernails cut off and sold to be preserved in the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum.
Chillal admires his fingernails, cut off at last. // Photo from Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
So...why all of that effort? Was it worth it?
Interestingly enough, in his feature in The Guardian in 2000, Chillal recounted a different reason for growing out his fingernails, instead of the oft-cited teacher anecdote. He claims that at 14 (the same age as the alleged school incident) “he read about a Chinese priest whose nails had grown to 22 inches in length. ‘I was amazed and I decided I would do that, and I could beat that,’ he recalled.”
Whichever story is true, this latter one certainly points to an idea emphasized by Chillal after he received official recognition from Guinness.
“I felt like I had achieved the biggest goal in my life. And now I can tell people wherever I go with pride about my title, and while travelling, people will recognize me as someone who appeared in the Guinness World Records book.”
The teacher tale is a sharp anecdote, a funny story in the context of this massive undertaking. However, combined with his other account, the fingernails make much more sense.
Alison Ormsby and Annie Fang in SHIP // Photo by Johanna Austin/AustinArt.Org
Chillal also gets a shoutout in SHIP, as “basically [the] mentor” of Jeremiah (played by Michael A. Stahler), who tried and failed to beat Chillal’s record. Both Jeremiah and Nell (played by Annie Fang) express a fascination for being special — for being someone extraordinary, and mold-breaking, like Shridhar. Nell has an obsession with the Guinness Book of World Records herself, always seeing herself destined for “the bigger and the better” — and Jeremiah was on the path to appearing in its pages. The guts and glory of the glossy book play a key role in both of their lives. It’s a very “outcasts and underdogs” idea: going rags to riches (or at least recognition) through unconventional — and in some people’s eyes, ridiculous — means.
Michael A. Stahler and Annie Fang in SHIP // Photo by Johanna Austin/AustinArt.Org
“What does a man not do for fame?” Chillal told the Guardian. “He jumps from boats, dives from planes, and does stunts on motorcycles. This is also done for fame. Were I to have another life I would do it again.”
What do you think — would the recognition of something like a Guinness World Record make an unusual and remarkable endeavor worth it? What do you think of Nell and Jeremiah’s outcast connection in SHIP?And have you ever found yourself an underdog — seeking fame and glory? Tell us your story!
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