Indian man has held his arm in the air for almost 50 years

Reddit has long been the source of interesting content from around the world, some of which might shock, scare or intrigue you.

But this time a user shared something slightly baffling and brought up questions about how durable the human body truly is.

User padmanabhapillai shared a striking image of an elderly man with his arm held up with the title, ‘There is a man in India who held his arm up one day and decided to keep it there. Almost 50 years later, his arm is still in the air’.

The r/Damnthatsinteresting thread is the home to many weird and wonderful things, and Reddit users who follow were definitely interested in the origin of the image.

Reddit/u/padmanabhapillai

According to Greek Reporter, the man pictured is Amar Bharati, a sadhu, which means to be a holy person in Hinduism, and he has been holding his right hand in the air for almost fifty years in a bid to advocate for world peace.

Bharati began to devote his life to Shiva, a Hindu deity in 1970, leaving behind his wife and three children in New Delhi.

Just three years later in 1973, he began to raise his arm as a symbol of his devotion and 'to militate against wars and support world peace,' as reported by the publication.

But it wasn’t an easy ride of the religious man, who actually ended up being in excruciating pain for two years until his arm lost feeling and his muscles wilted.

His reasoning for maintaining his upright arm is due to the Indian sadhus belief in Moksha, which is a term to describe enlightenment or liberation though the act of extreme self-discipline as a form of penance.

He recently spoke to the History of Yesterday news site to explain: “I do not ask for much. Why are we fighting our sons among ourselves? Why is there so much hatred and enmity between us? I just want all Indians and the whole world to live in peace with each other.”

LoggaWiggler/ Pixabay

Now, after years of holding his arm up for world peace, Bharati can no longer bend his arm, and his hand has closed in on itself.

Commenters on Reddit had a lot of questions about how the man lived his life for fifty years with his arm above his head.

One person asked how Bharati was able to sleep and whether his arm atrophied, and another replied explaining his theory.

He wrote: “It is. It atrophied years ago and now he's lost all sensation. Iirc doctors have basically said it'd require surgery to even pull it back down and not only would that be unsafe, there's still very little chance it'd ever work again. If anything, doing that now would just be more dangerous than leaving it as it is.”

It’s certainly an extreme devotion to self-discipline and an admiral expression of advocacy.