Small talk

It’s always nice when small talk leads to some interesting insight into a person’s life or thought.  This is perhaps especially true when you only encounter the person for a short time, since you don’t have other information to bias or cloud your judgment.  On my way home from watching the latest Batman, I was doing the usual chit-chat with the taxi driver.  He told me he’s recently started listening to the words that people say in songs, instead of just the tune.  He likes following the words because, if you listen closely, they tell you about what people are thinking and what matters to them.  He especially enjoys country music.

We were earlier discussing the weather, how it’s much nicer in the night than in the day, and how both of us hadn’t fully experienced snow before moving to America.  He told me that in his childhood in Nigeria, it hailed once.  He had never seen anything like it, and has never seen anything like it since.  The hail felt like it was either some kind of joke or some kind of miracle.  His sister told him that it’s been hailing frequently in his hometown in recent years.  It might be due to climate change, but neither of us could say for sure.

He said that he if he ever wrote a song, it would be about that time it hailed.  Then I reached home.  I enjoyed learning about something significant in this guy’s life. 

 

Food and relativity

Berty famously said (I assume everything he said is now famous):

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT’S relativity.”

I was reminded of this phrase recently while having the following conversation with two colleagues, Kennedy (a Catholic ex-seminarian from Kerala) and Ramakrishna (a Hindu from Tamil Nadu).

Ramaswamy: Hey Kennedy, I heard you’ve eaten all kinds of crazy things and that you eat beef for breakfast.

Kennedy: Yes indeed.  I was a seminarian in the Northeast (India) back in the day, and we ate dogs, cats, field rats…delicious

R: Wow!

Kabcity: Interesting. I ate donkey once. It was pretty good. Alligator and Ostrich at the Minnesota state fair were rather unappetizing.

R: You guys eat crazy things!

Kennedy: But don’t you also eat some crazy things in Tamil Nadu?

R: No no only goat and chicken, sometimes beef. But never non-veg for breakfast. The goat is delicious…especially the brain, blood, and feet.

Kennedy: Wow!

R: My favourite is the intestines. You must clean it though. It has waste. The entire stomach area is the best. But you must clean it. In hot water. Oh I love it!

Kennedy: That’s crazy

R: No, it is only a goat. It is not crazy. I can never eat a cat, and I will never eat beef for breakfast.

Kennedy: What is the difference – eating meat is eating meat.

R: You are right. I must try dogmeat when I am in Nagaland next week. But there is no way I can eat it for breakfast! That is crazy!! Haha!

Kennedy: haha!

City: That’s relativity (I didn’t actually say that, I just joined in the laughter)

Incentives and Development Conferences

A few days ago, I started studying for the GRE.  Needless to say, my dormant procrastination skills have awoken with rancour.  Today these skills are being put to blog use. 

Policy makers and development programme designers seem to love incentives.  Want women to deliver babies at accredited health centres?  Give them a cash reward for doing so. Need health counsellors to enrol more people for tuberculosis traetment? Try cash incentives.  Malawians don’t return to clinics for their HIV test results?  Give them some $.

Everyone loves a good incentive (source: http://www.angus7retirement.com/)

Humans do respond to incentives. So why not use them on ourselves?  More specifically, I’m thinking about international development conferences.

A few months ago, I went to a development related conference in Colombo.  It was hosted at a beautiful hotel on the coast and attended by people from all over the world.  A bilateral aid agency paid for my tickets and conference fees, and gave me a very large corpus of cash for other expenses (accommodation, local travel, dinner, alcohol, shopping, laundry, etc).  Without being in any way thrifty, I saved a few hundred dollars.  I did not need to submit any receipts and was allowed to keep the excess money.  I wonder if having an incentive to spend less could reduce the overall costs of such events.  Perhaps reimbursment based on actual expenses and a cash bonus to the person who spends the least?  The amount of the bonus would need to be precisely calculated, and there would have to be a mechanism to ensure that people don’t just say “I spent $0”.  So the bonus would have to be less than the actual expected expense, else everyone would just say “I spent 0”.  There would also need to be a cap on expenditure.  The admin costs of this system may negate the benefits, but I would be interested in seeing some experimental data – randomly assign some conferences to be fully lump summed, some to be have half participants on lump sum and half on incentive scheme, and some to have only the incentive scheme.  This could also give us some interesting insight into how much development professionals value these conferences…

The second similar area where incentives could be used is choosing locations for conferences.  I am not sure how this is presently done, but surely there should be an open bidding process for the larger events.  Recently, the 10th International Conference on Aids in Asia and the Pacific was held in Busan, South Korea.  It is unlikely that Busan, as wonderful as it may be, was the most efficient venue for this event.  Korea is one of the more expensive countries in Asia, and getting to Busan is not nearly as convenient as hubs like Singapore, Bangkok, or Hong Kong.  In addition, Korean is not widely spoken in the region, and I don’t know how many Busanese speak English.  To be sure, there are advantages of hosting in a wealthier city – it’s likely that Busan has more stable water and electricity, as well as access to other facilities, than Ulan Bator or Port Moresy.  But either way, an open bidding process, where potential organizers in different cities can bid for larger conferences, could incentivize more tightly managed international development events.  Big agencies should also publish data on how much these events cost.

Coming soon:  a series on auto economics.  That’s not doing economics on oneself.  It’s the economics of auto rikshaws in Delhi.  Should be fun.

Grandfathers and other thoughts

This is a post about three unrelated topics.

1. I visited my grandparents in Bombay two weeks ago.  In recent times, Dadaji (my paternal grandfather) has gotten into full story-telling mode.  Needless to say given that he made a 3-month voyage from India to the US in 1948 on a cargo ship, he has some amazing stories to tell.  This one, which I like to call “The Luddites of Pindi”, is my current favourite:

Dadaji was born in 1927, only 5 years after electricity reached Rawalpindi, a city now part of Pakistan.  By the time he started going to school, most of the city was electrified (not sure if this is the right word), but people had yet to embrace this technology.  “Don’t put on the light at night”, the dadajis of that generation would say.  “That’s enough now…put the lights off”, even when my dadaji was trying to study at night.  The reason?  “This electricity thing is a ploy by the British.  It’s going to make us all go blind”.

Another story I loved was about when M.K. Gandhi visited Rawalpindi.  Dadaji’s dad ran a shop and couldn’t leave it unattended, so he told 13 year old Dadaji to go see the Mahatma and donate one rupee to his cause.  Dadaji went to the event and thoroughly enjoyed listening to Gandhi speak.  As Great Soul and his entourage got on the train, Dadaji remembered that he needed to hand over the one rupee given by his dad for the cause.  So he chased after the train and, in a moment reminiscent of the iconic DDLJ climax , a Gandhi posse member held out his hand and Dadaji, at full sprint and full stretch, handed over the one rupee.

2. I was hanging out with ethelnmc a few days ago, discussing some of the problems faced by female workers, when we came up with this thought: what if there was an equal probability that men could get pregnant too?  If pregnancies were distributed equally and randomly across men and women, that would probably change a lot of things.  For one, it would reduce a major disincentive to hiring females (maternity leave).  Might it also reduce rape?  Would it lead to more responsible financial decision-making?  What are other things that could happen if getting pregnant were not an exclusively female trait?

3. India is in the midst of a big anti-corruption protest.  While I applaud the sentiment of this movement (“corruption is bad”), I find the means of protest – a hunger strike in New Delhi by a high-profile activist – irritating and dangerous.  Irritating because it is so well-designed to garner media attention, and dangerous for the precedent it could potentially set for unelected people or groups writing legislation.  Dr. Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian constitution and perhaps one of the most underrated “superhero” level political leaders ever, seems to have foreseen all this when he made his speech at the signing of our constitution in 1950.  Unfortunately, I have seen only one mention of Dr. Ambedkar’s thoughts in all the media coverage of the protest.  The other major source for the text below is Ramachandra Guha’s “India After Gandhi“.

Dr. Ambedkar (source: http://www.dekhloindia.com/)

Dr. Ambedkar warned the new republic that there were three things its people must be wary of. First, he advised that since we now have constitutional mechanisms that represent the people, we must not rely on civil disobedience and Gandhian stunts like hunger strikes to affect change.  For me, it is hard not to think of the current hunger strike as anything more than an attempt to hold the government hostage to the demands of an unelected group of people.  Even though I agree with some of their demands, the overall argument, “discuss my bill in parliament or I will fast to death”, terrifies me.  Yes, constitutional systems are slow and often feel unresponsive.  But that’s the price we pay for living in a system where we are governed by people we choose.

Dr. Ambedkar’s second warning was about “bhakti“, which basically means devotion.  He believed that Indians were especially inclined to hero-worship, and warned that this was a dangerous characteristic that could blind us to the follies of “great men”.  It’s perhaps this belief that ensured Ambedkar has never been as worshipped as some other freedom struggle personalities.  But this cult of personality is exactly what seems to be driving a lot of the anti-corruption energy.  Anna Hazare, the figurehead of the movement, has inspired slogans like “Anna is India, India is Anna”.  His movement also consciously and constantly insinuates that Hazare is some sort of ideological descendent of Gandhi, with his stage frequently having large photos of Gandhi as the backdrop.  I hope I’m not the only one disturbed by this.

Hey I'm hanging out with MKG! (source: http://winnersdelhinews.com/)

Finally, Dr. Ambedkar warned that even though the constitution guarantees legal equality, we must not forget that the social and economic spheres continue to be plagued by discrimination.  Specifically discussing caste, he states that “Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set in the preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them.”  Curiously, I think corruption is that rare attribute that cuts across government and private life.  It is difficult to find an auto in Delhi that will immediately agree to go by meter.  The way people drive shows scant regard for rules (government) or other vehicles/pedestrians (private life).  It is hardly considered unethical to fabricate medical bills in order to maximize tax savings.

So let’s not forget Dr. Ambedkar.  We definitely need to become less corrupt as a society and the government should set an example, but the way it’s being done now is far from ideal.

This ended up being far ramblier than I meant it to be.  Much gratitude for sticking through to the end if you’ve made it here.

Take Rest

I am a little worried that kabcity has wandered far away from meaningful debate and deep into the land of fluff.  But that’s ok, because as one of my favourite people just told me, “fluffy is still a substance”.  So now that my worry has been put to rest, here’s a post I’ve been meaning to write for a while.

I have loved growing up in so many different places, and one of the things I’ve loved most about this is being exposed to different ways of speaking the same language. People have mocked me for how I speak English (thanks especially to Matt and Anne for this), which only served to increase my appreciation for the diverse linguistic styles of peoples.  So here is a list of things people say that I find interesting, inspiring, hilarious, etc.

Part one: Ode to Tomzanian

My dear friend/colleague/mentor/co-worker/roommate/brother/uncle/father/lover Tomzanian, who’s a Korean by citizenship but as confused as me in practice, came up with this brilliant expression: “I need some advices”.  Advices, as it turns out, is a real word. And really, why ask for one piece of advice when you can have many advices?  Tommy also used to declare “I will make amends!” after he screwed up. Genius.  I miss that guy. Also, I’m really sorry that I told you “women” is pronounced “why-men”. That was mean.

Part two: where to do urine

Image from http://www.pbase.com/trevvelbug/darjeeling_and_sikkim

A few months ago, I was working in Chhatisgarh with a group of recent college graduates.  The training centre we were at had a bathroom for women, but no such amenity was available for those of us with a Y chromosome.  By lunchtime, I really needed to go.  We ate at a nearby dhaba (which had no bathrooms for anyone) and on the way back I started looking around intently for an appropriate spot for bladder relieving.  When I was about to give up hope, one of the guys I was working with walked up and asked, very politely, “Sir – kya aap urine karenge?” (“Sir – would you like to do urine?”).  I was thrilled. “Yes, I would very much like to do urine”. He took me, via a random alley, to a large field where we both did urine.  I don’t know if this is true for other languages, but colloquial Hindi includes a lot of English words.  Until that day, however, I did not realize “urine” was part of the Hinglish vocabulary.  Live and learn, as they say.

Part three: Dog owners, please clean up dog shit

For whatever reason, “shit” isn’t considered to be a vulgar word in Indian English.  People who’ve recently come to India find this strange, but it’s amazing how quickly one gets used to hearing “shit” from all sorts of people, including little kids and grandmas.  A few months ago, signs popped up all over my neighbourhood urging dog owners to “Please Clean up Dog Shit”.  It wasn’t until two friends from Washington were visiting me that I realized how bizarre this would be in the US.  Nothing more than a case of 1wp.

part four: Taking Rest, Getting Fresh, and an attempt at crawling beyond fluff

Jagat, who made a cameo in the first ever kabcity post, is one of my favourite colleagues.  I have a huge amount of respect for him, and I cannot put into words how much I’ve learned from him.  He speaks, in order of mastery from most to least, Oriya, Sanskrit, Hindi, Bangla, and English. We get along really well, and our relationship is more friendly than it is professional.  So when I arrived in Bhubaneshwar after a stupidly early morning flight, I was a bit confused when, after the usual greetings, he asked me “Kabs – do you want to get fresh or start working straight away?”. To “get fresh”, as it turns out, means taking a shower/generally “freshening up”.  I love it.  Every time I get the opportunity, I use it.  “Hey Jagat – let’s get fresh and then go to dinner”…”Hey Jagat – did you get fresh? Yes? Ok let’s go eat”.

A new favourite is “taking rest”.  I told my boss yesterday that I was unwell and wouldn’t be able to travel today.  He advised me to “take rest and see a doctor”.  One can also take tea, take lunch, take water (eg “I don’t take cold water.  Please bring me normal water”) etc.  And of course there’s “having sleep”.  “I called you but you didn’t answer!” “Yes boss – I was having sleep”. “Oh ok. No problem”.

My guess is that a lot of the interesting sentence construction in Indian English can be explained by the structure of Hindi and other Indian languages.  Father once gave me a very convincing and nuanced explanation of why we use the word “only” in very funny ways, but unfortunately I can’t remember any of his argument right now!  But sleeping, for instance, isn’t something one does in Hindi.  “Mujhe neend nahi aa rahi”, which means “I am not sleepy”, is literally translated as “sleep is not coming to me”. So sleep is more like a condition, and hence one “has” sleep.  Similarly, even though one could say “Meing bhooka hoon” for “I am hungry”, a much more common phrase is “mujhe bhook lag rahi hai”, which literally translates to “I am feeling hunger”.  I have often wondered if this way of constructing sentences, in which the subject is more passive than in American English, is a cause or consequence of the generally higher level of laziness (I think it’s neither – just coincidence).  But language does, to an extent, affect how we think.  And now that my blogging toes have touched the water of substance, it’s time to take rest.  Goodnight.

Does skin colour predict success in the entertainment industry?

Of late, I have been daydreaming about bizarre studies I would like to see the data and/or results of.  This, I believe, has been a function of three things:

1. Jetlag.  Kabcity recently returned from a lovely two week vacation in the US of A, which has been doing annoying things to his body clock (and yes Kabcity does occasionally enjoy referring to himself in the third person…don’t worry he won’t make it a habit)

2. My office moving from a location within walking distance to an area that’s a 20-minute auto ride away, allowing ample daily time for mind-wandering

3. Reading More Than Good Intentions and Poor Economics, both of which are about quantitative evaluations/studies of development projects

So during my jetlagged commute back from the office this evening after having recently attended a lecture by the authors of Poor Economics , I started thinking about what I’d do when I get home, and considered watching a Bollywood film.  Then I started wondering what it would be like if my life at that moment were a scene in Bollywood.  Looking around me, I noticed an average looking couple in an auto.  They were too dark to become mainstream Bollywood stars, which naturally led me to this very old hypothesis: Indian film stars are serially fairer than the average Indian.  I then started wishing I had some data showing me level of whiteness (can we measure skin colour?  I don’t know.  Will google) across various industries.  On my return home, I found a website listing Bollywood’s Top-Earning Celebrities, which included the following luminaries (photos are all from the hyperlinked website):

I had to make that in Word.  The hyperlink in the Shah Rukh Khan box is this.

These guys are all much whiter than the mean Indian whiteness.  The country’s most common profession by far is agriculture.  A google image search for “Indian Farmer Face” (without the “Face” it’s not very useful) yields this:

These guys are not as white as the film stars.

Are similar patterns observable in other places?  Eg, in the US does the “level of blackness” predict success in the entertainment industry among blacks?  Will Smith and Beyonce, the two black stars that immediately came to my mind, definitely seem whiter than the mean, but I definitely don’t know enough to make ridiculous sweeping generalizations like in the India case. Similarly though, what about whiteness of white actors?  It’s unusual to see super pale people on the big screen.

An interesting control case might be professional sports, where ability is likely matter more than anything else (this assumes no discrimination).

Some other tangential thoughts on India and skin – are white collar workers whiter than their blue-collar counterparts (if yes, how much of this is due to greater exposure to the sun?)?  Are Indians living outside the country whiter than those living in India? Are TV stars whiter than movie stars?

Other data I’d love to see :

• How much does marriage cost the state?  This would include tax discounts but also things like judge costs of divorce cases. Revenue would include marriage license fee (if there is such a thing).
• What has been the expenditure on randomized control trials in development?  Can we quantify the benefit of these?  A more detailed post on RCTs may be coming up soon.
• What is the average daily revenue and profit of Delhi’s “traffic vendors”?  These are guys who sell random things to people in cars/autos.  Commonly seen items include model airplanes, coconut, magazines, and tools to clean your car.  How much does profit vary by type of product?  By part of Delhi?  Are there barriers to entry in this market?  Who are the suppliers and how are products selected?

Will Inter Dominate Again? You Decide!

A STUDY has shown (therefore it must be true) that beautiful people are happier and more successfull than average looking people.  A notable case study that provides supporting evidence is the story of my beloved Inter.  Examining the data from the last 10 years, it becomes apparent that we do better under attractive and generally “classy”-looking managers. Under ugly Marco Tardelli we were crap. The more dignified looking Hector Cuper did better, but further analysis shows he’s kind of ugly too.  Ignoring our one game caretaker manager Corrado Verdelli, we reach Alberto Zaccheroni. This marked further ugliness and further failure.

And now finally we enter the glory years.  For your viewing pleasure, messrs Mancini and Mourinho:

Needless to say, we dominated under these guys, especially the gorgeous Mr. Jose.  For some reason, the powers that be decided to change this highly successful managerial appointment strategy and hired this guy:

Disaster followed, until the leadership realized that we need to bring sexy back and hired Leonardo:

Leonardo has now left, and Mr. Gasperini will soon take over.  So will we succeed?  YOU DECIDE!

Animals and Economics

Why are we so obsessed with animal imagery to explain economic phenomenon?  Bulls and bears are the most prominent example, but there are also Asian Tigers, the Chinese Dragon, and more recent (and irritating) Indian elephant and African Cheetah Generation.  My guess is that these symbols are much easier to process than the complex realities that actually characterize economies.  Like hero narratives dominate popular understandings of history (“Gandhi led India to freedom”, “Lincoln freed the slaves”), current situations are also more digestible when presented in simple terms.

Interestingly, animal metaphors seem to be preferred over industrial or mechanical ones (Chinese Rocket Economy?).  Does this represent an acknowledgement that, these change processes are organic and unpredictable, not mechanized and standardizable?  Probably not, but I still like the thought.

In defence of the NGO SUV

My boss recently told me that the India chief of a very large environmental INGO moved here from a corporate sector job in Singapore and took a paycut of 50%.  His annual income went from INR 4,00,00,000 (that’s four crore to you non-South Asians out there – USD 896,000) to half of that.  One could look at this in two ways:

1. This guy’s awesome – he left $$$ to do some good in the world.

2. Whoa this guy is making so much $$$ while working at a non-profit…how immoral.

Which brings me to the main point of this post – why does conventional wisdom tell us that development type work should not be monetarily well rewarded?

That's our tax money at work

It is easy to think of the development sector as being completely different from the corporate world.  In the latter, it is assumed that people will act in ways to maximize personal and institutional profit.  In the former, personal motivation is supposed to come from some intrinsic desire to “do good”, while institutional performance is measured not by the bottom line but rather by some (often abstract and arbitrary) development indicators.  There has been a lot of interest in the last few years on better defining success, the most visible example being the Millennium Development Goals, but it seems to me like the labour market in development still works on the assumption that people are in this industry to do good.  There are many problems that this creates:

1. It makes hiring and firing processes very complicated. How do you rate someone who is awesome at managing projects but doesn’t care about the poor?  Can you fire someone for being shit at their job but really caring about poverty?

2. Looking at market wage rates, development sector professionals are usually underpaid. While I don’t know if such a study has been done, I would hypothesize that if we take, for example, all the economics graduates from a particular liberal arts college in the last 20 years and look at their income in the first 5 years after graduation, then we will find that those working in NGOs, think tanks etc are paid less than their peers in the corporate world, even when controlling for GPA and such.

3. Given that money flows in development are largely top-down, the idea that one should be paid below market rates follows the money and finds its way to the lowest level workers too.  This is a big problem in the Indian context (and I would imagine others too), because there are a large number of people who are in development because they just need a job and want to support their families and not because they want to save the world.  These guys start out with NGOs, get some training and become more qualified in, e.g., doing surveys, then leave for the private sector where they earn a lot more money.  There is little incentive to stay in development when they see that even their superiors are earning less than entry-level people in, e.g., a for-profit market research firm.

Now to the SUV, which is often used as a symbol of the cost-inefficient ways of aid workers (side note – hilarious SEAWL post on drivers).  The nice car serves a very important function that is easy to ignore – incentive to work hard and stay in the development industry.  This is probably not true when foreign “experts” visit “the field”, since locals are acutely aware that those guys are just special, but rather when local superiors hang out with local field staff.  Status indicators like nice cars (and they’re Toyotas…hardly super fancy) and, much more importantly, competitive pay cheques, will encourage people to continue working in organisations doing socially desirable work.  If donors are serious about wanting to find local solutions etc, then they need to create a system that encourages locals to look for these solutions.  Right now, there is a much greater incentive to join a better paying job in the private sector.

There is obviously much more to this topic but I fear this post is already long enough that, if you’ve made it this far, you’re probably alone. I don’t mean this to be a defence of all aid spending and I have no doubt that current mechanisms are hugely inefficient (e.g. one of my friends at the IMF told me they installed new TVs at the DC headquarters so people could watch the football World Cup – that is ridiculous). But I think the decision makers in this sector are woefully out of touch with field realities.  While World Bank senior economists may have given up lucrative jobs in the private sector to work in development, the majority of local level development workers are probably more interested in the pay cheque than in the social benefits of their work.  Local solutions are great, but there needs to be a structure which incentivizes finding them, and SUVs might be part of that structure.

Dhoni’s Temple

I have been working in Jharkhand for the last few days.  Jharkhand is one of India’s poorest and least educated states.  It is also home to our recent World Cup winning captain, the great M.S. Dhoni.  I really like Dhoni, but I am disturbed by some of the reactions to our victory.  Two things in particular bother me:

1. Governments of several Indian states have given a lot of land and money to cricketers who are already millionaires.  These guys don’t need more land or money.  I hate that my tax money is going to them.  Dhoni was already earning more than $10 million/year two years ago, Sachin drives a ferrari and other cars, and Yuvraj Singh earns some $4 million/year just from Reebok.  These guys can now look forward to, among other things, a lifetime of free first-class travel on Indian railways.  What a waste of money.  (one gift I found amusing rather than annoying – Dhoni is receiving an honorary doctorate, without having ever completed a bachelor’s degree.  haha)

2. One would think that winning the cricket world cup would be down to some natural talent, a lot of hard work, good coaching, luck, match-fixing, etc.  But speaking to people around here, it seems the real reason we won was that Dhoni frequently visited and received blessings from the Mata Deori Temple.  The Man of the Series, Yuvraj Singh, also immediately thanked his guru after the victory.  Yuvraj’s mother said in a TV interview that the guru gave him excellent advice like “stay calm and don’t get out”.  One billion other people could have said the same thing.  But back to the main point – I fear that when high-profile events like this are attributed to gods/God-type things, we risk creating a culture where hard work is not encouraged.  To be clear, people don’t really believe that devotion is a sufficient condition for success, but many do think it is a necessary one.

When my field team and I were returning from a village yesterday, they insisted that we stop at the Mata Deori Temple.  It was already quite late in the evening and visiting the temple required a 20km detour, but they were convinced that to successfully complete our project, we had to visit this place.  I agreed because of the outside chance that Dhoni would be around.  A few weeks ago, when I was working in Chhattisgarh, I was faced with an identical demand –
“We are near (some temple, the name of which I cannot remember)!  Lord Rama walked through this area!!  A visit to this area is not complete without going to the temple,” and then later “We can’t go to (earlier temple) without also visiting (this other temple that’s close by)!!  The visit is simply incomplete.”

The weekend before I came to Jharkhand, I was watching a super-dramatized Hindi news report from “TRIBAL JHARKHAND” about this horrifying practice of piercing the stomachs of 21-day old babies with a scalding iron rod, which supposedly protects the children from developing any stomach problems.  In the village we visited right before going to the temple, all the children had scars from this.  So I asked some adults about it, and they told me it was really helpful, and if children who didn’t have it done did develop any stomach pains later in life, they too would be put through this.  I told my team members about this, and while most of them agreed that it was crazy, one person (who is completing her MSc, though I’m not sure in what exactly) tried to convince me that this might work, as it could somehow transform cells and strengthen the immune system (incredibly, this is what some doctors are saying too).  I am not convinced that this practice is effective, and even if it does have some beneficial outcomes, many children die during the procedure, so there really should be no reason to continue it.  But such is faith, I suppose.