H
ow much is a body worth? Out to expose the global trade in human body parts and indeed ‘whole’ children, American Scott Carney puts an estimate on his own body—heart, blood, kidneys, hair, semen, bones—around $2,50,000, several times more than what an average Indian ‘donor’ is worth. Carney, who worked as a journalist for several years in India, travelled across the country to investigate the thriving body parts market catering to an international “red market”. He travels to desecrated graves in rural West Bengal to unearth the illegal trade in bones and visits a dormitory filled with surrogate mothers in Anand, frequents a slum in Chennai better known as ‘Kidneyvakkam’ and lands up at a blood factory in Gorakhpur.