--- title: Indian Boy With 260 Teeth Gets 232 Pulled description: Doctors said the operation was "really fun." canonical: https://time.com/3028667/indian-boy-teeth-pulled/ author: Jack Linshi article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-24T15:13:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:11:54.101Z og:title: Indian Boy With 260 Teeth Gets 232 Pulled og:description: Doctors said the operation was "really fun." og:url: https://time.com/3028667/indian-boy-teeth-pulled/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8cece93f4f94b497/69869d02cd804dbc4dccc12f/indian-boy-232-teeth-pulled.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3848 og:image:height: 2165 og:image:alt: Indian Boy Gets 232 Pulled og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Indian Boy With 260 Teeth Gets 232 Pulled twitter:description: Doctors said the operation was "really fun." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8cece93f4f94b497/69869d02cd804dbc4dccc12f/indian-boy-232-teeth-pulled.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # An Indian Boy With 260 Teeth Just Got 232 of Them Pulled Out > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Jack Linshi](https://time.com/author/jack-linshi/)  ## Jack Linshi Jul 24, 2014 3:13 PM UTC  Indian dentists operate on Ashik Gavai at JJ Hospital in Mumbai on July 22, 2014, Indian dentists operate on Ashik Gavai at JJ Hospital in Mumbai on July 22, 2014, AFP/Getty Images  by [Jack Linshi](https://time.com/author/jack-linshi/)  ## Jack Linshi Jul 24, 2014 3:13 PM UTC A boy in India endured a six-hour operation Monday to remove 232 teeth that grew as a result of a rare medical condition. Now, Ashik Gavai, 17, has 28 teeth left—four _fewer_ than most adult mouths. 17-year-old Gavai had been suffering from [composite odontoma](http://www.jaypeejournals.com/eJournals/ShowText.aspx?ID=289&Type=FREE&TYP=TOP&IN=%5FeJournals/images/JPLOGO.gif&IID=32&isPDF=YES), a condition in which a benign tumor forms in the mouth, causing additional teeth to grow as well. In Gavai’s case, a molar tooth in his lower jaw had grew hundreds of smaller teeth. Gavai’s doctors at J.J. Hospital in Mumbai couldn’t initially remove the growth deep in Gawai’s jaw with normal surgical tools, so they opted for a “basic chisel and hammer” before more delicately removing teeth one-by-one. His doctors called their operation a “world record,” and are planning to submit it to Guinness World Records. “I have never seen anything like it in all my years of practice,” Sudanda Dhiware, head of the hospital’s dentistry department, told the Washington _Post_. “We were so excited by it. And it was really fun for us to be able to extract them all, one by one.” The condition doesn’t normally result in teeth as plentiful as Gavai’s — Dhiware said medical literature shows that a maximum of 37 teeth have been extracted in the past. Gavai, who comes from a poor family of cotton growers hours outside of Mumbai, had noticed swelling along his jaw months before his operation. But local doctors were unable to fix his condition, and his family didn’t have enough money to seek immediate, proper treatment. Fearing that Gavai’s puffy cheek may have been cancer-related, his family went to a state-run hospital, where they obtained funds through a program offering financial support to poor patients. Gavai is currently recovering from his grueling surgery, and his doctors are hoping that the condition doesn’t reoccur—which it could, if a bit of tumor, even microscopic, remains. \[[_Washington_ _Post_\]](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/24/the-indian-boy-who-had-a-world-record-232-teeth/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3028667/indian-boy-teeth-pulled/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3028667/indian-boy-teeth-pulled/"},"headline":"An Indian Boy With 260 Teeth Just Got 232 of Them Pulled Out","datePublished":"2014-07-24T15:13:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:11:54.101Z","description":"Doctors said the operation was \"really fun\"","url":"https://time.com/3028667/indian-boy-teeth-pulled/","keywords":["Newsfeed","India","World"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8cece93f4f94b497/69869d02cd804dbc4dccc12f/indian-boy-232-teeth-pulled.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jack Linshi","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jack-linshi/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8cece93f4f94b497/69869d02cd804dbc4dccc12f/indian-boy-232-teeth-pulled.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Indian Boy Gets 232 Pulled","caption":"Indian Boy Gets 232 Pulled","creditText":"AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3028667/indian-boy-teeth-pulled/","name":"An Indian Boy With 260 Teeth Just Got 232 of Them Pulled Out"}}]}] ```