14 DAY TRIAL // For some of us, there’s nothing we like better than to unwind at the end of a long day with a long bath. For Kailash Singh, a bath is like a curse: he hasn’t taken one in 37 years because he believes that, if he doesn’t wash, he will get a son.
Singh has seven daughters and he and his wife are already past the age when they can have children, but he’s not losing hope, even if that’s also won him the title of world’s smelliest man, the Daily Mail writes.
It’s been 37 years that he’s washed or cut his hair or beard. Even his wife and children have given up on him, after trying for long to make him see that he truly, really needed to wash himself.
“Mr. Singh, 65, has not bathed or cut his 6ft-long dreadlocks since 1974, shortly after he married,” the Mail writes.
Apparently, a priest guaranteed him that he’d get a son and heir if he stopped taking care of his personal hygiene, a belief he continues to hold onto to this day, even if real life has proved him wrong already.
The only act of cleanliness that Mr. Singh does is to take a so-called “fire bath” each evening, which, as per the British publication, involves smoking marijuana, dancing around a bonfire and praying.
His wife recalls a time when she and the kids tried to get him to take a bath, even against his will.
“He fought us off and ran away. We’ve tried several times since to force him to have a shower but he puts up such a fuss,” Kalavati Devi (60) says.
“He says he’d rather die than take a bath and only a son could change his mind. It has been so many years now I’ve got used to it,” she adds.
Singh knows that his poor hygiene has made him the laughing stock of everybody, and even says that he’s ok with children and grownups laughing at him when he passes down the street.
Since he works the entire day tending cows in a scorching heat, one can only imagine why they call him the world’s smelliest man.
Nevertheless, he doesn’t plan to take a bath just yet – not until he gets a son, he says.
For photos and more on Mr. Singh, please refer here.