Impressed by his feat of surviving without solid food for eight years, US space agency NASA has invited new age guru Hira Rattan Manek to the US for tests.

Manek, claims his wife Vimlaben, has been subsisting on water and solar energy for eight years now.

Manek, currently in Orlando giving a series of lectures on solar energy, visited Kozhikode recently to participate in a felicitation function.

Vimlaben told PTI from Kozhikode that her husband requires only two litres of water and a couple of hours of sun-gazing a day. He has not taken a morsel of food since 1995, she said.
 
Manek gazes at the sun only during 'safe periods' -- an hour after sunrise and just before sunset.

According to the information provided by Ahmedabad-based neurophysician Dr Sudhir V Shah on the Internet, Manek was subjected to tests by the scientific community in Gujarat and the US, including isolation in a nursing home for more than a month and not allowing him to meet his relatives while fasting.