Wanna get pregnant? I’ll just stand on your back

AS FERTILITY clinics go, this one has been branded a step in the wrong direction. Women in India trying to conceive lie on the ground, so priests can walk over them.

The annual event happens on the first Friday after the Hindu festival of Diwali. In video footage, 200 women are shown face down in a row with their arms outstretched.

Priests dressed in white and wearing garlands of orange flowers then walk over them as drums are beaten and blessings chanted by onlookers, while another priest hits them on the head with a bunch of sage. The event is done in honour of the deity Adi Shakti.

Kiranmayee Nayak, chairperson of Chhattisgarh state commission, said she doesn’t endorse such acts, adding: ‘It’s very hazardous as men were seen walking on the women.

‘It could injure their vital organs.’