NEW YORK, SEP 08 -
A Nepali teenager set to be declared the planet’s smallest person got gala treatment on Tuesday while on a tour of New York.

Crowds at Times Square jostled for a glimpse of Khagendra Thapa Magar, who at 17 is the size of a baby and has stopped growing. Magar was on his maiden visit to New York as part of a publicity trip organised by the freak-show museum Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

In a white shirt and doll-sized pin-striped gray jacket, Magar smiled shyly, blinking at rows of cameras and vast neon billboards lining Times Square. Ripley’s declares Magar — at 22 inches tall and five kilograms — the world’s smallest person.

The Guinness Book of Records this Monday elevated Colombia’s Nino Hernandez to the title, saying Magar is not yet an adult. But next month Magar turns 18 and, and at two inches under his rival, he will easily grab the undisputed top title of tininess.

Ripley’s, a museum chain celebrating oddities such as a five-legged cow, a bearded lady and two-headed sheep, said Magar suffers primordial dwarfism. The condition typically reduces life expectancy to as little as the 20s.

But his translator, Min Bahadur Rana, said Magar is in many ways a normal teenager. “He’s very happy. He laughs a lot. He wants a girlfriend — a big one, not a small one,” Rana said. “He wants to be a doctor. After school, he wants to study.”

Edward Meyer, vice president for exhibits at Ripley’s, said that during an evening out on the town on Monday, Magar developed a particular interest in New York blondes. “He’s fascinated with blondes because there are virtually no blonde women in Nepal.”


Posted on: 2010-09-09 08:38

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