Body-Snatching Grave-Raiders Rave It Up in West Bengal

This feature is taken from VICE magazine, v29n2: THE REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL ISSUE. To subscribe to four print issues each year, click here.

Around midnight, the town of Kandi was eerily still. I got into a wobbling toto and was quickly surrounded by wandering phantoms—their faces painted back and covered in glitter, carrying sickles that glinted in the street lamps, with garlands of blood-red hibiscus flowers clinging to their necks. Some were in full-body paint, depicting Shiva and his consort, Kali. To me, they looked less like gods and more like nightmares—part deity, part demon, complete chaos.

At dawn, the real craziness ensued. A horde of bare-chested men flooded into a thronged local temple, clutching real human skulls, while elsewhere people paraded lifeless toddlers that had bee