LIFE is not always easy at high altitude, as India’s tallest man can attest.
head and shoulders above his fellow countrymen and believes he’s struggling to find love because of his colossal height.
“In terms of marriage, the main problem is my height. It will be very difficult to find someone who is tall enough for me. I think it is impossible,” Dharmendra, 32, said.
“Women are very much interested in me. They talk to me and giggle but I have never met anyone who I could look up to.”
Women trouble aside, Dharmendra’s height has also made it hard for him to find paying work.
He said: “Whenever I went for interviews for jobs, people asked how will do the work if I was so tall.”
Reluctantly, he took up work as a freak show performer at a local amusement park, where he spends his days in a cage-like structure selling photographs to paying punter for approximately 20c per pop.
“After completing my studies, when I could not get a regular job, I got an offer saying that I will be paid (UK) 30 pence per day at the amusement park,” he said.
“I charge 10 pence for one picture. Some people pay, some run away without paying. I get hurt when people run away without paying me.”
Singh also gets a monthly salary of 10,000 rupees ($A200) which enables him to survive.
“With that kind of money, I manage my life,” he added.
While most of Dharmendra’s family are a normal height, his maternal grandfather was 2.2m (7 foot 3 inches), suggesting his size could be genetic.
As a child he was always taller than his peers and was often bullied in his youth.
He said: “I was ill-treated by many people who would call me names like ‘giraffe’ or ‘camel’.’
“Some people would say that I have grown too tall and I have become useless. People would say I have become hopeless. I used to feel bad about these things.
“I was not very friendly with the children in my neighbourhood and I didn’t make many friends. I have a problem — I can’t make friends. And that holds true for women also.”
Dharmendra, who holds a Master’s degree in Hindi, say his height poses some real problems for him.
“I have to face a lot of problems in my day to day life because of my height. I need a helper to help me with smaller things. I have trouble even walking,” he said.
I need someone to go to market and buy things for me. I don’t go to the market very because it is very crowded and people harass me.
Nevertheless, he says being super tall is not all doom and gloom.
He said: “I feel great when people look at me and get happy. I make their day. They want to know about me and get photos clicked. I am immensely popular and it is all because of my height.”
But Dharmendra says his height is taking a toll on his body.
“I few months back, I had fractured my hip bone. I got myself treated in Delhi. I have a plate in my hip, and I have to bear pain because of it. I have to use a stick for support,” he said.
If Dharmendra had a full time job, he might have found a girl but with his irregular income and deteriorating health no one is ready to walk down the aisle with him.
One of the regular visitors at the fair, Mohammad Iftikar, said: “I was in absolute shock when I saw Singh for the first time. I just couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought this was some trick.”
Back at the amusement park, an advertisement invites people to meet Dharmendra — comparing him to an electricity pole and claiming that he eats 25 eggs for breakfast and drinks 25 litres of milk a day.
Dharmendra’s neighbour, Suman, said: “Neighbours used to talk a lot about his height as they had never seen someone like him before but he never paid any heed to what people said. He was always a very optimistic and cheerful person.
“He is like a son to me and I wish he finds a suitable girl for himself and gets married.”
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