Pieces of Flair

Who says starvation can't be a good time?


Mothers use his name to scare their children while even adults hope they don't bump into him in the dark -- for more than 40 years Gopal Haldar has been making his living in India's Sunderbans mangrove region as a ghost.

Measuring a mere 1.21 meters (four feet) and weighing a slight 24 kilograms (52 pound), Haldar -- now near to retirement age -- says he has been malnourished all his life.

"I have hardly had the money to buy good food or visit a doctor. I have been suffering from malnutrition since my childhood.

Because of his poor health and stick-like physique, he added, neighbours had said he was "born to play a ghost".