Hairy bid for a world record

Santram Vaghel had some to the Hindustan Times office in Bhopal in 2003 saying that he will be putting his moustache for a world record. It was a nice human interest story and I spoke to him at length and what you get to read is from an interaction with him at the reception area.

Santram Vaghel swears by his moustache for anything and everything in life. And why not? It is not an ordinary one. At 16.3 inches (45 centimeters), the 42-year-old farmer from Bagsevania village near Bhopal plans to grow it for a couple of years more and bid for a place in the Guinness Book of Records.
Stretching his upper lip hair to its full glory, Vaghel says an old goldsmith friend inspired him to grow his moustache. He had gone to borrow money from the friend, who asked him to mortgage something of equivalent worth. Santram promptly gave him a hair from his moustache for the RS 6,000 he borrowed.
Hi proud possession has only grown in worth fro him since then, and for the past 10 years he has not tried to hinder its untrammeled growth.
Ten years back, he sported a 22-inch moustache. He had to remove it after a son expired. Had it not been for that unfortunate incident, he would have long overtaken the Guinness record being held by his compatriot from Rajasthan, he says.
Though he is the only one in his family to have that big a moustache, he says now some villagers have also taken cue from him.
It remains to be seen if Vaghel becomes yet another man from the state to make it to the annals of the Guinness Book of Records. Or if any of his inspired village peers beat him to it.