The view from top

Being taller than average is often perceived as impressive. But how tall is ‘good tall’ and when does the inching towards becoming a human spectacle begin?

Kamarudeen demonstrated to DH the inconveniences he faces while walking past the handwash areas at restaurants, buying readymade clothes, enquiring for medicines at pharmacy stores and getting into normal autorickshaws. Credit: DH Photos

It took me no effort to spot P M Kamarudeen in the morning crowd swelling near a community hall at
Pavaratty town in Kerala’s Thrissur district. No ‘Are you wearing a blue-check shirt?’ calls, no ‘Can you share your live location?’ chats on WhatsApp.

At 7 ft 1 inch, Kamarudeen is the tallest person in the town, as well as in Kerala. Still, he is almost one foot behind the tallest person in India, Dharmendra Pratap Singh of Uttar Pradesh.

As he strode forward in a pink shirt and mundu, his shoulders drooping, my cab driver Ali Koya and I readied our phones. When he arrived, we took turns to click selfies, outstretching our arms and leaning back to fit us all in the frame. Kamarudeen didn’t entertain the selfie duty, a given for the tallest in the group — if we didn’t tilt our neck up, I would only see his shoulders and my driver, his chest.

Nor does he like photo-ops with strangers. He explained: “Three migrant workers were arrested for carrying drugs. The police examined their phones and found a selfie with me. I was their friend, the workers had told the cops. After the police spoke to me, they were convinced I didn’t know them.”

A freak incident, yes, but Kamarudeen’s height has given him more grief than happiness. “Finding clothes and footwear of the right size are the least of my problems. Our hardships increase with every extra inch beyond 6 ft or 6 ft 5 inch,” Kamarudeen, touching 60, said, a teaser of what I was to learn from our meeting to understand the challenges faced by people like him in a country where 5 ft 3 inch (for women) to
5 ft 8 inch (for men) is the norm.

But he considers himself fortunate that he wasn’t born “short”. “They have it worse,” he commented about people with dwarfism.

Jobs, far and few

Bullied for his tall, lanky body while growing up, Kamarudeen fled from his home in Pavaratty at the age of 22 and subsisted on odd jobs in Chennai.

“I was twice as tall as my classmates in Class 3. I was a laughing stock. Students and teachers would ridicule me, saying ‘I looked like a mother hen surrounded by chicks’ or ‘I was a stick’. So I dropped out of school and started helping my father run his small provision store,” he began.

Because of the mockery Kamarudeen faced routinely, his brothers felt insulted for being his family. “Despite having a family, I felt lonely and rejected. I was suggested hormone therapy by a doctor at the age of 10 but my parents could not afford it.”

It was 1985 and Chennai was still Madras when he ran away from home. Somebody he knew from his hometown got him jobs, as a hotel waiter, room boy, chapati maker, and carpentry assistant. In the meantime, the local press started publishing photos of ‘the new tall man in town’.

The turning point came when actor Kamal Haasan identified Kamarudeen walking past the famous AVM film studio and stopped his car to ask if the latter was interested in acting. “I hadn’t seen a film shooting ever, I said. He simply asked me to come to the studio where they were shooting his Tamil film ‘Uyarntha Ullam’. I arrived the next day and danced among a village crowd for the song ‘Ottachattiya Vechikittu’. That’s all, but the remuneration was attractive — Rs 500!” he broke into a little smile.

Appearances in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi industries followed and so did some star-struck moments. He got to meet Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan, 6 ft 2 inch tall himself, during a shoot in Hyderabad in 1989. “He was curious about my height and enquired about my diet and health. Realising that I could not understand English or Hindi, he spoke to me in Malayalam. I was surprised.”

In the 1995 Telugu fantasy comedy ‘Ghatothkachudu’, he played a robot opposite actress Roja. “You can’t identify me as I was wearing the robot costume,” Kamarudeen guffawed. The 2005 Malayalam film ‘Athbhutha Dweepu’ was his last. He played a cannibalistic giant, going after dwarves on an island.

Cameos for quick laughs or as a beast, and invitations to inaugurate shops outlined his career of 24 films albeit his Wikipedia profile is not more than two lines long. “My height got me films but never prominent roles. Plus, this was my side job and my employers were not happy as I had to take leave whenever a shoot came up,” he lamented.

As a viewer, he takes balcony seats at the cinema hall, out of choice and otherwise. “If I take a seat in the last row, I don’t block anyone’s view and I get adequate leg room.”

Home truths

Today, he is back in his hometown Pavaratty, eking out a living by selling lottery tickets.

A steady job is not easy for unusually tall people to hold. Most get hired as security personnel or ‘showmen’ outside shops. Even he had hustled as a showman at a hotel long back. But the question that baffles him the most is: “Do you play basketball?”

After some walking, Kamarudeen asked if we could sit somewhere. “I can’t stand continuously for more than 10 minutes. Many tall people suffer from back pain. As we grow taller and our weight increases, it puts an additional strain on our legs and affects our body posture. Moreover, my legs are yet to recover from a recent accident,” he explained why he was looking weary.

We decided to go for tea at a local restaurant. Koya pulled up his sedan in front of us and opened the rear door for Kamarudeen. There wasn’t enough leg room at the back, so Kamarudeen squeezed himself in the front.

At the restaurant, he bent and turned his body to the side to get past the door to the handwash area. “The government mandates disabled-friendly infrastructure in public. I wish they take initiatives for us,” he said.

Our tea arrived, and so did the owner of the restaurant. “Kamarudeen only has height but no money (sic). He is neck deep in debt,” he told me. The conversation steered towards Kamarudeen’s family — wife and two daughters, who, he was relieved to share, have “normal height”.

Taller people usually find it tough to find partners, women more than men, but not Kamarudeen. “The alliance for Laila (his wife) came through relatives and worked out,” he said. There were no awkward marriage photos — “We were sitting down. The bride did not have to stand on a stool.”

But he had to customise his home. “We replaced three doors that were 6 ft high with doors that were two inches higher than me. I have nailed a plywood sheet to extend my bed. And if I stay in a lodge alone, I have to book a double bed to sleep diagonally.”

“Thankfully, the roof of our house was already elevated. You know, I lost some hair to a ceiling fan at a shop many years ago!” The ‘Mind Your Head’ rule is something he takes seriously — incidentally, one of the reasons for his slightly hunched back.

Among the adjustments he has made at home is using a handheld mirror instead of fixing one high up on the wall. He is, of course, the go-to person to replace light bulbs, assist electricians to repair ceiling fans or retrieve stuff from tall shelves.

Out and about

After our tea break, we headed to a readymade garment store nearby. The sales girl fished out an XXXL shirt for Kamarudeen, the biggest in their stock, yet it fell two inches short on sleeves. “I get my shirts stitched by the tailor and prefer mundu over trousers. Getting trousers stitched is costly because it requires that much more cloth.”

Hunting for footwear is like finding the needle in the proverbial haystack. “I found this size-12 slipper I am wearing in a store but see, my feet are still jutting out. I get formal footwear made to my size at the cobbler.”

We headed to the Pavaratty bus stand. “I can neither stand in buses nor sit on random seats because either the head room or the leg room turns out to be inadequate. I try to board the bus at the first stop to occupy the front seat — it has adequate leg space,” he shared.

Autos are no better unless they are big. Trains are “suitable” except that he has to sleep sideways, curled up.

He has been on a plane once, from Chennai to Hyderabad, for a film shoot. “I did not
suffer, the person behind me did. I had reclined the seat to its maximum to fit my legs and to get a view of the clouds,” he said.

Kamarudeen stopped by a pharmacy store and bent steeply forward to speak to the man at the counter. “Tall people always need to bow their head,” he grinned but turned serious as quickly. “Hospital beds are always short, so I avoid getting admitted as much as possible.”

It was almost 2.30 pm. Kamarudeen looked restless and did not want to have lunch either. “I have to sell the daily draw lottery tickets by 3 pm. And with just two days left for the Onam bumper lottery ticket results, I need to push them out quickly.”

I decided to cut our meeting short. I bought three lottery tickets of Rs 40 each from him to try my luck, thanked him and walked back to my cab. As we drove away from the indistinct crowd, I could still effortlessly spot Kamarudeen, ‘Pavaratty’s pride’, as a folk singer hailed him recently.

And I won Rs 100 in the lottery, my first win.

‘Love to stand out’

At 6 ft 3 inches, lawyer K K Kavitha is considered to be the tallest woman in Kerala. “Recently, a High Court judge spotted me easily among a gathering of lawyers. To stand out in a crowd is an advantage,” says Kavitha, who lives in Kottayam district. From finding a groom after a hunt of 10 years to not finding a roomy car, from buying unisex footwear to adding extra fabric to saris, the hassles are many but they don’t bother her much. But getting approached to inaugurate a store because of her height riles her up.

Support group

Kamarudeen is part of the Kerala Tall Men Association. Ex-air force officer Zacharia Joseph started it in 1999 to help unusually tall people find jobs (such as security guards), get monetary support and find life partners.

The members have grown from 20 to around 4,000, all of whom are 6 feet and above. A Tall Women Association was floated but it has garnered only 10 members, including Kavitha.

President Tigrees Antony says they have sent multiple representations to the government to reserve seats for tall people in buses and trains but to no avail. Kamarudeen would like incentives for self-employment.