Little... and VERY large!
SHE’S 2ft tall, weighs just 11lb and hopes one day to bask in Oscar glory HE’S 8ft 3in tall, struggles to find shoes to fit but still dreams of finding love
AT THE age 30, Jyoti amge is smaller than the average two-year-old, weighs just 11lb and is 2ft tall.
It was a medical condition – a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia – that affected Jyoti’s growth. and along with it, every other aspect of her life.
Because Jyoti is so small, she struggles to be independent. ‘I can’t be left alone,’ she once said. ‘I can’t leave the house alone because it’s too difficult to get around.
‘and I can’t be left alone in the house on my own, because everything is so big that I can’t reach anything!’
She’s so miniature that she’d have no hope of getting on a chair without help and, in a supermarket, is safest perched in the back of the trolley.
But the hardest bit, she says, is not the practical side.
But the fact that people tend to baby her – pick her up without asking, talk to her as if she’s a toddler and cradle her in their arms like baby.
amazingly, somehow, none of this affected Jyoti’s extraordinary confidence, prevented her from going to school and university, or made her remotely self-conscious about looking so different to everyone else.
and it certainly hasn’t dimmed her desire to act, be on television and, one day – if all goes to plan – be in contention at the oscars. ‘that is my dream,’ said Jyoti, who hails from India.
She has already starred as Ma Petite in american Horror Story: Freak Show on netflix, as well as in making appearances in several documentaries.
‘I love the recognition!’ she says. ‘It makes me feel positive. Because it is the one thing that I can achieve on my own, regardless of my difficulties.’ Go, Jyoti, go!
SULTAN KOSEN, the world’s tallest man, is 8ft 3in and hails from turkey, where the average height is just 5ft 7in, so he’s used to standing out in a crowd.
He’s also used to dealing with the downside of being as tall as a small giraffe.
Such as having to sleep in a custom-made 10ft-long bed. Struggling to find shoes to fit his 14in-long feet (the world’s biggest), or gloves for his foot-long hands (the world’s second biggest).
He was too big to finish school. too big to fit in most cars.
too big to chat easily with everyone else in his family. So big his joints are weak and he has to use crutches to support his 23st-frame.
the only job he could find to support his family was to work as a farmer. But unlike so many of us, Sultan, 41, has always been good at looking on the bright side. Indeed, interviewed back in 2009 – in a suit specially made for the occasion and the first ever to properly fit his 49in inside leg – he insisted there were advantages. Such as being able to see great distances, and performing useful jobs in the home, like changing light bulbs and curtains. He also announced his twin ambitions in life – to marry and find a car he could fit in. the first came true soon after, when he wed Syrian-born Merve Dibo, who was ten years his junior. Sadly, their love did not last. not – Sultan was quick to point out – because of their dramatic height difference. But because she spoke only arabic and he, turkish. until he was ten, he was completely average height – like everyone else in his family. But then a tumour triggered an illness called pituitary gigantism, which led to an overproduction of growth hormone and a massive growth spurt.
Since then, he has done his utmost to make the most of things – appearing in a Hollywood movie, embracing his various records and most of all, looking to the future. Because he is hopeful he will marry again. and is still on the lookout for a car that fits him.