For babies, a 30-foot plunge for good luck

The ritual dates back almost 700 years

How far would you go to demonstrate your religious faith? Some families in rural India — both Hindus and Muslims — are willing to let their babies be tossed off the roof of a shrine, to be caught in a stretched bedsheet about 30 feet below.

The ritual, long popular in Maharashtra and Karnataka states, dates back almost 700 years, to a time when infant mortality was high, medical knowledge was scant and families had few places to turn for help.

Legend has it that a saint advised people whose babies were dying to build a shrine and drop the ailing infants from the roof to show their trust in the almighty. When they did so, the story goes, the babies were miraculously cradled to safety in a hammock-like sheet that appeared mid-air. From then on, prayers for the birth of a healthy baby in the region have included a promise to toss the baby as an offering to the god who granted the prayers. Villagers believe that the ritual brings the child long life and good luck.

The practice came under fire in 2009, when a widely circulated video recorded at the Baba Umer Dargah, a shrine in Solapur, Maharashtra, prompted the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to intervene. The commission ordered the practice stopped. Officials say the practice is illegal but it continues on a small scale in some villages, including in Mangasuli, where the Lord Khandoba, an avatar of Shiva, is worshipped.

Javed Fardin Akhtar, a resident of the nearby Sangli, said the actual tossing was done not by parents but by experienced devotees. After one bounce on the bedsheet, the babies are swiftly returned to the parents waiting anxiously in the cheering crowd below.