Khagendra Thapa Magar declared world's shortest man

AGENCIES

KATHMANDU, Oct 14: Nepali Khagendra Thapa Magar celebrated a big birthday Thursday as the world´s smallest teenager turned 18, and was officially declared the world´s smallest man.

A team of adjudicators from the Guinness World Records led by deputy chairman Marco Frigatti arrived in the lake city of Pokhara to award Magar the title. "It´s my big birthday today," he said by telephone. "I´m going out to play."

As the media flocked to the tourist spot, Magar cut his birthday cake at the ceremony where he received his certificate.

"He´s very happy today," his mother Dhan Maya Thapa said. "I had so little hope of seeing him grow up to be this old when he was born."

The infant fit in his mother´s palm when he was born in Nepal´s Baglung district in 1992.

Three rounds of tests done on Magar on Wednesday showed him to be 67.08 centimetres tall and weigh about 6 kilograms.

Magar´s predecessor is 70-centimetre-tall Columbian Edward Nino Hernandez, who weights around 10 kilograms.

Magar, a big Tom and Jerry fan, attends a local kindergarten.

"A birthday is a very special day for anyone," said his father Rup Bahadur Thapa. "But Khagendra´s birthday is more special because we´ve been through very hard times bringing him up."

Magar´s parents sold fruits and vegetables before the boy gained his celebrity status.

"´We also hope to register him as the lightest man in the world and for the smallest hand and feet in the Guinness World Records," said Min Bahadur Thapa of the Khagendra Thapa Magar Foundation, who has been campaigning for last four years to register Magar in the records book.

Magar has been helping his family make a living as he travels around the country with dancing troupes. He says he is looking forward to traveling to China as Nepal´s goodwill ambassador for Nepal Tourism Year 2011, a title he shares with the reigning Miss Nepal.