Why these Indians are paying lakhs to get bones broken

"Have you ever felt overlooked as a person no matter how jovial you are among friends or how efficient you are at work? I have felt like that all my life,” Saurabh, 35, says with a sigh. An executive with a multinational bank, Saurabh feels his short stature — he is 5 feet 3 inches in height — means he has missed out on love and career advancement. So, when a close woman friend told him that she would have considered him as a boyfriend had he been taller, Saurabh decided to literally break a leg or two.

In June this year, the Mumbai resident underwent an expensive limb lengthening surgery — that involves breaking the bones in his leg— to add two inches to his height. He has been lying in bed for the last three months in a Gurugram guesthouse with metal rods piercing his legs and on a heavy diet of painkillers and calcium-rich foods. But Saurabh has no regrets. “I can’t wait to go back to meet my family and friends,” he says. His friends think he is recuperating from an accident.