Arpan has 13 fingers and 12 toes – he lost another finger when he was two.
He suffers from two genetic disorders, that caused extra digits and his double thumbs to fuse.
However,his parents don’t want him to have surgery due to his local fame.
Children often learn to count to ten using their fingers or toes, but that wouldn’t help this 4 year old boy from India who has 25 digits.
Arpan Saxena from Bhopal, India, suffers from two rare genetic disorders called Polydactyl, a disorder that gives rise to excess digits being formed, and Syndactyly, which leads to fingers and toes being fused together.
Arpan, who has 13 fingers and 12 toes, enjoys celebrity status in Bhopal, with his picture plastered on city walls.
He said he liked being a local celebrity Arpan says he wishes he could wear normal shoes.
‘I love it when people come to see me and take photos,’ he said. ‘But the only thing I don’t like is that I can’t walk a lot because my feet never fit in any shoes.’
‘When he was born, we were surprised to see that he had 26 fingers and toes,’ he said. ‘I had never ever heard of anyone being born with so many fingers.’
Following an accident, Arpan lost a finger when he was just two years old.
‘He was out playing when he injured one of his fingers and it just sort of came off,’ Anil said.
Arpan’s mother, Tanu, 30, said they wouldn’t be getting Arpan an operation, even though a lot of people have offered help.
‘Its every parents dream to be known for their children,’she said.‘Arpan is famous all over Bhopal and we like it that way, and I am apprehensive about how an operation might affect him at this age.’
His father survived the Bhopal disaster – a huge industrial accident at a pesticide plant in 1984. Campaigners say at least 15,000 were killed within days and that the effects of the gas continue to this day. They also say Bhopal has an unusually high incidence of children with birth defects, as well as cancers and other chronic illnesses.
Funny enough, Arpan does not hold a world record for most number of fingers and toes.
The current world record is held by a fellow Indian named Akshat Saxena, a two-year-old boy who was born with 34 fingers and toes.
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