In 2017, National Geographic did a special episode in their Explorer series investigating his life and success as a runner at such an advanced age.

He gives credit to his balanced diet of self-prepared chutney along with mineral water and lemon juice for his longevity.

I stopped eating ghee and other fatty items almost 40 years ago, neither do I drink or smoke," he said.

While Gudha refers to his passport, voter ID Card and PAN card [a tax identification in India]—all stating 1897 as his year of birth, and all three government of India-issued valid identity documents—asserting he is 120 years old, he does not have a birth certificate to prove this age.

In a letter to Ken Stone, editor and founder of MasterTrack, Kaschke outlined some of the difficulties officials face in verifying the ages of some of their oldest runners: "Was a birth certificate valid if the original no longer existed?

"[3] This is a problem commonly faced by competitors from countries of Africa and Asia, including India.