A six-year-old boy born with a 4cm ‘tail’ is revered as divine by Hindu villagers in a locality of the Indian capital Delhi.

Shivam Kumar surprised doctors when he was born with an exceptionally long patch of hair on his back, appearing almost as a tail, according to his mother Reena, 30.

The strange discovery caused some people in their locality to hail him as an incarnation of the Hindu monkey god Hanuman.

This continued for almost a year before their Guru asked the family to stop letting people honour him in this way, as this would hinder his life in the future.

Now aged six, as seen in this footage from November 10, the boy has been living his life normally but is always treated specially by the neighbours.

His mother says, “Everyone loves him so much in my neighbourhood. Initially, it caused a problem for us as people would visit our house every other day which would hinder our daily lives.

“Our guru suggested asking people to stop this madness and let them live their life, so we followed his insructions and the people now have lessened approaching us although it has not stopped completely.

"Sometimes people would come and ask about Shivam but we would deny saying he is not in the house."

When asked if the doctors have suggested any treatment his mother Reena says, “There is nothing wrong with my son as he is perfectly healthy.

“This is by his birth, we know he is special but we cannot shave the hairs as it would bring a bad omen for our family.

“This might have been a gift of God and we do not want to tamper with any of his plans.”

Shivam’s grandmother says, “He acts and behaves like a monkey. He will laugh like an ape and always keep jumping.

“He will invert himself and stay with his legs up in the air just like a monkey would do.

“We initially thought it would improve with time but this is also similarly an indication that he might be an incarnation of Lord Hanuman and we cannot deny it.

“His tail is now short but we believe as he grows up the hairs would increase in length. We do not even know if the hairs would also stop growing but that is not what it seems like which would happen so we doubt it would grow further.”