A man in India who makes a living based on his disfigured face has refused an offer to get surgery so he can pay for his daughter's wedding, The Huffington Post UK reported.
Mannan Mondal, known as the "elephant man," suffers from a rare disease that causes uncontrollable tumors to grow on his face called neurofibromatosis. He spends his days on the streets of Delhi and at religious sites begging for money from people sympathetic to the growths on his face, which cover almost everything except for one eye.
Mondal recently received an offer from a specialist to receive plastic surgery for a new face. However, the 50-year-old husband and father of four turned the offer down, saying he needs his face to be the same to make money for his daughter's upcoming wedding.
"I will have to buy a lot of things- beds, cabinets, rings, watches and a cycle for the groom," Mondal said according to The Huffington Post. "The money I earn while begging is barely enough to feed my family. But I have no other way to help my daughter. I have to continue like this."
Mondal sends the money he makes, up to $8 a day, back to his family in Kolkata, West Bengal.
In April, Dr. Ajay Kashyap, a plastic surgery specialist at Fortis Memorial Research Institute in Gurgaon, examined Mondal and told him he can help reconstruct his face.
"We could give him a new mouth, some kind of an eye socket and some skeletal support to make his appearance as normal as possible," Kashyap said according to the Daily Mail.
Thinking about his 20-year-old daughter's wedding, the father refused. Mondal said it was a matter of either paying to change his face or making money to feed his loved ones, The Huffington Post reported.
"If there was an option of getting better without having to pay then I would definitely take it," said Mondal, whose tumors are noncancerous but have grown worse over the years. "But not now. I have a wedding to think about. I will have to go back home, talk to my family and then decide. But feeding my family will always come first."
