A large scar ran from the middle of his stomach to the middle of his back, across his left. Walking past the bare-chested elderly man, I instantly recognised the scar as one left after a kidney transplant operation. I had seen similar marks on others the previous day.
Minutes before we had crossed paths with him near the Pallipalayam bus stop, Kannamma K had pointed in the direction of her village and asked me to follow her. “There are many such people,” she had said.
The village is located in Pallipalayam municipality, in Tamil Nadu’s Namakkal district. When we reached it, we found that most houses’ doors were locked. It was a cloudy November afternoon, and many residents had gone to work. And yet, among the first small group of women we encountered in the village was one who had sold a kidney.
As we continued walking through the village, nearly every second or third person told us they had sold a kidney – anywhere between five years ago and 30 years ago. Every single person knew someone who had sold a kidney.
“It is very common here,” said Jayamma M, an elderly woman who lives in the village and has herself sold a kidney. (All those mentioned...
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