Lapatilla
A Hindu devotee, restrained with hooks pierced through his back, makes his way towards the Hill Top Murugan temple for offerings during the colourful annual Thaipusam festival, one of the world’s most extreme displays of religious devotion, in Georgetown on the Malaysian island of Penang on January 17, 2014. The Hindu festival of Thaipusam, which commemorates the day when Goddess Pavarthi gave her son Lord Muruga an invincible lance with which he destroyed evil demons, is celebrated by some two million ethnic Indians in Malaysia. AFP PHOTO / MOHD RASFAN