Problems are growing for the largest tiny family in a city in India.
That’s because Ram Raj Chauhan, 52, and eight of his 11 relatives suffer from a genetic condition called Achondroplasia, which causes short limbed dwarfism.
“If we go out, people crowd around us and ask us strange questions like, ‘Why are you so short?,’ ‘where are you from?’ Everyone teases us,” said Chauhan, who lives in Hyderabad.
Not only are Chauhan and his family ostracized because of their height, they have trouble getting jobs and suffer from an array of health issues.
Chauhan dresses up and welcomes guests to weddings as a marriage welcomer, but he has trouble getting enough work to support his large family.
“No one was willing to give me a job. I have faced a lot of problems because people look at me and say, ‘How will you manage?’ “Chauhan told Barcroft.
“I work at my relative’s grocery store when I don’t have the wedding work to do,” he added.
Chauhan’s daughter Ambika, 27, dreams of becoming an accountant one day but fears she’ll be discriminated against because of her stature.
“In the future I want to become an accountant but this will only be possible if I’m able to get a job. People tell me that because I’m short, that’s why I’m unable to get a job,” she told Barcroft.
Chauhan, who has a son that works as a tailor and another who works in a telephone booth, believe his daughters face more challenges than the men in his family.
The girls do not have a mother because his wife — who was of normal height — passed away in 1993 when she was seven months pregnant.
Even though Chauhan’s family is struggling to survive, he urges them to look on the bright side.
“So many people have teased me and other members of the family. But if someone is sad and, by looking at us they get to laugh, it’s God’s will that we are the ones making them laugh,” Chauhan told Barcroft.
