I miss this kid.

I was going through my photos from India and I ran across these ones of my favorite baby; Chimchar*. I've posted about her before but what I was meaning to discuss about her (besides the fact that she rides a motorcycle and has her own goat; awesome!) is her eyeliner.

In the part of Rajasthan I was in all the babies, male and female, wear smudgy black eyeliner and black marks on their faces every day from the time they are born pretty much until they are about 10 years old. The moms don't do it to them to make them look pretty, like on those creepy child pageant shows, but to make them look ugly.

My #1 pageant girl, Swan. Smile baby, people are looking at you!

The idea is that little children are so beautiful and perfect that they are irresistible to evil spirits who want to steal them and like, eat them or whatever it is spirits do with babies. I don't know. Nobody was really able to explain that to me. So the mothers mark their faces to make them look dirty and crud and then the spirits will pass over them; presumably to devour some other cosmetic-free infant. Sucka.

*Yes. Like the pokemon. This kid just gets cooler and cooler.