(My internet -or, more accurately, internet explorer- has apparently decided to take a holiday, making it almost impossible for me to write anything due to the intense lag.  Therefore, you are being treated to a post I created last week for future posting instead of a post about Florida.  Hopefully my beloved machine will be in a more cooperative mood tomorrow and I can actually get something written.)

The other day, I came across this news article while looking for an account of Satyam’s spectacular fall from grace. (Satyam being a prominent offshore services provider in India that is involved in a scandal even more obscene than the US Enron scandal).  Here is what I happened across.

How incidents of dipping babies in ‘boiling’ water or oil be avoided in Hubli?

The text reads:

“Believers are queuing up before temples to dip their babies in what appears to be boiling water or oil. Priests say a divine miracle ‘saves’ them. Rationalists say that is not a miracle but ‘a magic trick’.”

What should the civic society and the government do to avoid such incidents?

Yes, you heard correctly.  Boiling water or oil.  Babies.  Just when I think I’m getting used to things in India, I am confronted with something like this.  Yes, apparently some people would willingly dip their child in boiling oil, relying on magic to save him.

Not only this, but the article in the paper asks how these incidents can be avoided, as if this is a topic for a public discussion and eventual vote.

The mind boggles.

If the link is still working, read the comments below it.  It turns into a flame war between Muslims and Hindus.  We are led to believe that the two groups get along nicely here, but things like this make me wonder where the truth lies.