Now and Forever

It’s been a while since my last post. I pretty much took off without a trace and without really a conscious decision to stop blogging. My apologies to those who have been checking in to see if anything’s been happening at the Realm. I knew that if I wrote a ‘this-is-my-last-entry’ post, that would really have been the end to blogging, so I just left things hanging. It’s been an interesting year since my last post, and though I do not know if I’ll be continuing with new posts regularly, I do know that events like the death of a legend like Michael Jackson cannot go by without an entry in what can now only be described as my online diary ( considering I must have lost most of my readers over the year! ) .

It’s July 7th, 2009 and I watched the memorial service online after getting back from work today. Needless to say, it was truly heart breaking watching the family and especially his children go through this. There are only two types of people in the world today – MJ fans who are really taking this personally, and non-fans who are wondering why this is such a big deal. Considering the title of my post, it’s obvious which of those categories I lie in. Over the last few days since hearing the news first on Jun 25th, I’ve been trying to piece together why exactly this is a big deal to me and the millions of other fans around the world. While I don’t have answers for the rest, I can surely speak for myself.

So what was Michael Jackson to me? Here’s a taste of it.

Michael Jackson was being 7 and singing ‘anna-manna-bokkay’ not knowing the true lyrics ‘Annie are you okay?’ from Smooth Criminal. He was being 10 and watching Moonwalker over and over again, wishing I could turn into a car or a robot too, or dance the way he did. He was singing with my brother in the backseat of our Toyota Corolla in Saudi, each of us having a photocopy of the page of lyrics that came along with the ‘Dangerous’ cassette. He was begging my cousin abroad for a tape of his tour when I returned to India and couldn’t find any new videos or music of his. He was the subject of so many of my drawings and paintings that I think I can sketch him without reference to this day. He was that day in ‘95 when we paid 180 Rs to get the two cassette HIStory album. He is the distinct feeling of sadness about something I can’t pinpoint that I feel listening to Stranger in Moscow. He was being urged by the class to sing a song on the last day of school in 9th grade and being terrified of doing it since I never did it before, until I remembered the lyrics to  ’Keep the faith’, my long favourite song. I did keep the faith, and went on to join the music band in 10th grade, and haven’t stopped playing since. He was the thrill of coming home after school one day to see a new video,  ’You rock my world’ playing on MTV after years of absence from the music scene. He was the warm feeling inside I got thinking of my then crush while listening to one of his most beautiful songs, ‘Speechless’.

Michael Jackson has never been just about the music. He’s always been about the memories. He was alive and kicking when I was born in 1982, and was breathing and making music till two weeks ago. In his death, us fans don’t see the death of a person or even a legend. We feel we’ve lost a part of our own selves, and it is something truly hard to explain.

It’s tragic that the memories stop here, and that all we have is the music he has already made and that there will never be a new album to look forward to, or a new video of his to watch. We won’t see him redeeming himself and getting back to his glory days in the concerts that were to come as early as this month in London.

For one last day though, the world is united again in MJ. When I see fans on TV crying in Hong Kong and London and New York and the Philippines, I am glad that I know how they feel. It’s up to us to carry on his legacy, and tell the next generation what it was like living in the same world and growing up with the greatest entertainer of all time.

Goodbye, Michael Jackson. Thanks for the memories.

Hollywood just doesn’t cut it anymore. Ever since watching Pan’s Labyrinth last year, I’ve been feeling the urge to watch more and more foreign films and independent movies. I’ve watched tons of them already, so many of which I’ve absolutely loved, and an equally good number of them that were flat out boring. So here are some good movies to watch, when you’re done with the Hulks and the Batmen( Batmans?) from this Summer… movies that are real, no graphics, no fancy effects, just stories of people and things that happen around them… movies dealing with simple things, complicated people and mostly fantastic acting… movies that perhaps need wine rather than popcorn, that are more for a Sunday afternoon than a Saturday night… movies that give you something to think about instead of an escape from it!

Before introducing the countdown, I just had to say – Avoid watching trailers at all costs, or reading the back of DVDs … these things spoil a good half of the movie, and in some extreme cases possibly even the entire movie itself! Also, Indie flicks don’t guarantee you a happy ending all the time, so if you’re one of those who goes by the ‘I have enough problems in my life already’ philosophy, this list is best left unread!

So here goes..

(10) Martin (Hache): This is a Spanish movie, based in Argentina and Spain. The dialogue is quite witty and the acting is pretty great.

(9) Water: Our very own Indian movie (which we banned and so later had to be entered as a Canadian film!) directed by Deepa Mehta is the story of a young widow in Varanasi. No matter how much we desis cringe at the exoticization of India in western media, there are stories that still need to be told, and this is one of them.

(8) The Diving bell and the Butterfly: Winner of tons of awards this year, this French movie is essentially a story of survival. It’s pretty motivational and you feel grateful for so many things once you’re done watching it. I read the story of this man in Reader’s Digest maybe a decade ago. This was the film adaptation of that true story.

(7) After the Wedding: Nominated for the Oscars for best foreign film but lost out to the ‘Lives of others’, which I will be talking about shortly. This was a Danish film, quite a Bollywood-ish story with all the twists and turns, but nevertheless quite entertaining.

(6) Bella: A sweet Spanish story revolving around two people, set in New York. It’s a nice watch, emotional at times, and very good acting.

(5) Half Nelson: The story of a teacher and one of his students, both with their own problems and pasts, and how they deal with their presents and futures.

(4) The Visitor: One of the few movies that has crossed the 90% barrier on Rotten Tomatoes (which is what I use for Movie ratings), it was the first movie that I cared to actually watch in a movie theater rather than use the DVD player at home. This is the story of a Professor in the US and his experience with an unexpected ‘visitor’… it’s in English, and is a pretty nice movie to watch.

(3) City of God: Wow, this movie was crazy. It’s raw Brazil, with the gangs, the poverty, the drugs and the crime. A must watch foreign film.

(2) The lives of others: Jeez, what a fantastic movie. This was the Oscar winner for the 2007 Best Foreign film award. I highly recommend this one. It’s a German film, set in East Germany, 1984. I’m not giving away anything more.

(1) Nobody Knows: It’s been 5 days since I watched this movie and I just can’t stop thinking about it. This movie is intense and long, so if you are the type who needs actions scenes more than subtleties, this isn’t for you… though I would still strongly suggest trying it out just to see. Set in Tokyo, this Japanese movie is about the lives of 4 children … and that is again all I am willing to give away. The direction is amazing, the scenes are fantastic, and the movie just grips you from start to finish. The actor who played the eldest of the kids won the Best Actor at Cannes in 2004… an award he definitely deserved.

… well, there you go. If you have any suggestions for good Indie or Foreign films, please do add them in the comments! Happy watching!

Yeah, I know it’s been a while since I last posted. Call it a combination of longer hours at work and more things to do when I come back home, but this year has so far been a lot more ‘outdoorsy’ than any of the past three and I’m quite happy about that. Unfortunately, my reading time has been drastically shortened, and so it’s no wonder that completing ‘The Blind Watchmaker’ took me close to 3 months, when it should have been more like 2 weeks!

I loved this book by Richard Dawkins and wished I had read the whole thing in a stretch, because by the time I reached the last chapter, I had close to forgotten what happened in the first. I totally recommend this book, and do hope that once you start, you read at least a chapter a day to maintain the flow.

Dawkins has come to be more of the ‘face of Atheism’ these days, and that is quite sad because that is really not his forte. Evolutionary biology is his area of expertise and Atheism is just a mere consequence of the realities he came to accept being so convinced about this theory and what it actually means. This book, in many ways helped me celebrate the completion of one year since coming to terms with life and the universe and it has made me a lot more confident about this topic.

What surprised me most while reading the book was that the author not only has decades worth of knowledge about biology, but is also very well versed in computer programming and mathematics. He frequently uses these to help make his point, and as a programmer, it was pretty great to see things explained your way.

The book talks about a lot of things:

• What exactly evolution is, and isn’t
• How our organs appear to be ‘designed’, but why they aren’t
• The technicalities – DNA/RNA, genes, traits
• Does evolution occur gradually or in spurts ?
• Debunking alternate theories

You might be wondering – what’s with the weird title of the book? I did too. It is actually a reference to the Watchmaker argument that says that if you are walking on a beach one day and stumble upon a watch in the sand, would you assume that the watch ‘just happened’ or that someone ‘designed’ it and left it there? Obviously, you assume the latter – and if you do, can’t we also say that living things (which are FAR more complicated than mere watches) were also ‘designed’ or ‘created’ the same way by God / Creator / Intelligent Designer?

Read the book to find out!

For the uninformed readers for whom this title doesn’t ring a bell (and that would probably mean all of you who have a life besides the internet), let me educate you on the latest web phenomenon. A certain site called ‘Stuff White People Like‘ (SWPL) created on Jan 18th, 2008 and updated regularly since then, has achieved instant success with millions of hits per week and tons of publicity both in the online and the real world. The author has even gone on to receive a lucrative book deal from Random House, for a book by the same name.

Simply put, the site is a humorous and satirical view of a stereotypical liberal white person, and lists everything – ranging from caring about the environment, to coffee – that these ‘white people’ like. To get you started, here are some of the funnier posts I’ve read:

Stuff White People Like

• #6 Organic food
• #20 Being an expert on YOUR culture
• #41 Indie music
• #55 Apologies
• #71 Being the only white person around

There are many other funny posts, but I liked the Indie music and Apologies posts a lot :) …

Stuff Desi (Indian) People Like

Obviously, the next question for all of us desis is, is there a desi knock-off of the ‘SWPL’ site yet? Apparently, the #1 thing desis like to do is to make desi knock-offs of the original site, because I have come across at least 8 knock-offs already ! The following four are merely sites worth mentioning, and I’ve left out many other sites that have simply acquired a similar domain name and done nothing since then – ( Now there’s your typical desi, out to make a quick buck by holding on to a hot domain name! )

Anyway, in decreasing order of posts/readers( and hence, popularity) , we have

• Stuff Indians Like: Seems catered to ABDs (American Born Desis) but I found it quite funny nevertheless
• Stuff Desis Like: Relatively new, but funny as well
• Desis101: Only just started, has miles to go to catch up with the above two imho (HT: Desipundit)
• Stuff Indian people like: Nice domain name, but no real work done besides a few youtube video links

Once again, to get you started, here are some of the posts I liked, mainly from the top two sites above:

• #76: Taco bell fire sauce
  
• #8: Dancing with their arms up
• #2: Network Marketing: Amway: Believe it or not, my classmate approached me with this pyramid scheme waaay back in 8th grade! :P
• #23: Orkut .. the desi hub ( I liked this the most :)

While I am not sure which of these sites will eventually win as the ‘established Indian version of SWPL’, its certainly good that many people are attempting it and eventually, the one with the best quality will win, not just the best domain name. I’m sure the eventual winner will be quite a fun site to read every once in a while.

Good luck to them, and may the best knock-off win !

I have this habit of reminiscing too much. I often think about how it was, growing up in the 80’s and the early 90’s and love thinking about all those shows and movies that defined those wonderful years of my childhood. To name just a handful, I was crazy about the Knight rider, the Ninja turtles, the Terminator, Home Alone, Back to the Future, Perfect strangers and countless other movies and shows that to this day, bring back fond memories every time I hear some tune from their respective soundtracks.

Well, ever since YouTube and online video hit the scene, and I mean really became a part of everyday life, I have been constantly tempted to re-visit some of these old shows. Not just movies or shows that I watched and enjoyed, but even those that I missed that I wish I hadn’t when growing up.

Take the Star Wars trilogy for instance, and I mean the original trilogy(4,5 and 6 in the series). I watched it when I was way too young to understand or remember it, and so I lost out on the Star Wars phenomenon… which, for kids of the 80’s is a cardinal sin. At 25, after watching more than a 100 pop-culture references to scenes from the trilogy and failing to understand them, I finally decided to sit down and watch them. And that’s where I am taking you with this post …

Let sleeping movies lie.

There is really *no* way you can put yourself in the shoes of someone who is living in the 70’s, and honestly enjoy all that the movie has to offer. This is 2008, and there is no way you can turn back time. You are not only used to some serious out-of-the-world computer graphics, but even without your knowledge, you have come to expect so much quality from the direction, cinematography and editing. Things just aren’t the same. That which you call a ‘cliche’ today, was at some point perhaps the best line in a movie !

The first of the trilogy was seriously hard to get through, but the next two were thankfully better. Had it not been such a legendary trilogy, I would have gladly abandoned the series after the first one. I should have learned my lesson after watching an episode each of the Ninja turtles and Perfect strangers, both of which I found much less exciting than I remembered them to be, but no – I forgave and forgot. Finally, a week or so ago I picked up this movie, ‘The Running man’, which I must have watched in ‘89 or ‘90 as a little kid, that I had really found exciting and had always wondered about since I’d forgotten most of the story. It starred Arnold Schwarzenegger in a futuristic action packed reality show…. and boy, right from the opening scene I just couldn’t wait for the movie to get over! It was one of the most horrible movies I’ve ever seen – the cheesiest of dialogues, the most cliche-ridden characters ever, and a story so predictable that anyone who watched it would consider pursuing fortune-telling as a career. It was that bad.

That was the last straw. No more sci-fi movies of the past. Missed ‘2001: a space odyssey’? Well, too bad. Missed the original Star Trek series that *everyone* swears by? Too bad, I missed that too. Don’t know head or tail about the characters in the ‘Wizard of Oz’? So be it. I choose ignorance over a waste of 2 hours.

And I will definitely choose the gradual waning of my fond memories over the complete erasure of their beauty. These movies shone at some point in time, and unlike books or even songs, they have an ‘expiry date’ whether you wish to believe it or not. Feel lucky that you tasted it while it was good, but don’t ever eat a ten year old apple.

So I *finally* got around to renting out the ‘Inconvenient Truth‘ DVD and watching it earlier this week, and I must say, I felt like kicking myself for not having watched it earlier. If you are one of those people who still think that the terms ‘debate’, ‘exaggeration’ or worst of all, ‘myth’ are associated with Global Warming, then do yourself a favor and watch this movie. I know there is a certain amount of appeal in being a ’skeptic’, but trust me, this is not one of those cases where its cool – its just plain ol’ ignorant.

The movie does shake you, for what it shows is not a bunch of subtle hints or vague patterns establishing this phenomena, but graphs and statistics and facts that just scream into your face. I found the explanations and the evidence very convincing, and I’m sure you will too.

I am honestly embarrassed to admit that up until last week, I was of the misguided belief that global warming was an issue that was of importance in the long run, and not one that needed immediate concern. I thought it was one of those ‘if-this-gradual-process-goes-on-for-another-50-to-100-years, then so-and-so will happen’ things. Jeez, how wrong I was.

I am sure most of you have watched this by now, or if not, have at least done a better job than I had in finding out the facts by reading up on it yourselves. If not, please consider this post as an alarm bell, and watch this movie as soon as you can.

Here are some Indian news articles this week that have totally changed my life, and I am so proud to be Indian especially after reading them.

#1 – IIM student from UK prefers working in India (link)

This priceless NDTV article starts ‘Jann Gabriel wants to stay on in India … ‘ and goes on to talk about just that, how this student from UK will accept a job working in India rather than one abroad. Now that this British student has officially forsaken Europe for India, I am filled with immense patriotic fervor towards my mother India and now feel that it is worth something after all. I wish they also ran an article about how she prefers wearing the Indian kurti (like in her photograph) instead of the firangi t-shirt – that would have made me feel great about my Indian culture and dress as well. Alas, a golden opportunity was missed, but I’ll take whatever I get. One shouldn’t be too greedy, right?

#2 – 36% of NASA scientists are of Indian origin (link)

The Minister of state for human resource development, in making his case for higher education in India, quoted in parliament the figure that 36% of NASA scientists , 38% of doctors in the US , and 34% of Microsoft employees are of Indian origin. I was once again filled with great pride at this figure, but read that he got this news from an E-mail forward, and the figures were wrong.

Still, I have learnt to look at the positive aspects of life. Since this act clearly demonstrates that our Minister had the technical expertise to work probably a Microsoft machine, connect to the internet and check his e-mail from an internet site, it shows tremendous improvement in the scientific abilities of our politicians. Since he was making a case for higher education, I think his point must have been well received – that if politicians are able to handle the ground-breaking technological advancements like reading email forwards, then surely regular Indians can do at least something close to this?

I am very proud of this politician and technology whiz-kid. Though his figures were wrong, he has very cleverly got his point across to the nation that higher education definitely has a future for us desis. I wish his critics were clever enough to understand this bigger picture and shut the hell up.

#3 – India is 6th most positively viewed nation, according to Americans (link)

I am very happy that John Smith and Jane Smith think positively of my nation, though I must admit I am a little jealous of the Canadians, Britishers, Germans, Japanese and Israelis that beat us to the much-coveted affections of American civilians. Like our fore-fathers rightly said, “there is nothing better than the acceptance of the white world”. I follow this religiously and try my best every day to beat those Japanese at my work place, and I think I am making a lot of progress with Molly, our 60-year old receptionist. I should ask her some time to revise her nation popularity list … and verify if I have made any headway on this chart.

When my Sri Lankan colleague noticed my efforts at impressing Molly and asked me why I was not making that much of an effort to push India up his popularity charts, I had to give him the bad news: that he was not white and that the browns don’t count.

Tough luck, man.

By all means, this has been an irritating election season, and I wish I knew how to get ‘dis-interested’ in something. I wish I could just turn this interest off whenever I wanted and be immune to all these drama filled Obama/Clinton wars. There’s really no way to come out of this without being frustrated -if you are a Clinton fan, you would be tearing your hair apart over the blatant media bias favouring Obama, and if you were a (Ba)rack-star, you’d be pounding your fists in frustration that the contest didn’t get over on March 4 and that we have to read not only another 300 articles about Clinton vs Obama, but have to prepare to stoop into lower levels of muck that the Clinton campaign throws at us… for at least another 2 months.

Now that my fave Ron Paul is out of the question ( I guess he really never was ‘in’ anyway ), I have a new favourite – and judging by only the way they have carried out their campaigns, I am pretty clearly in Obama’s camp. He’s run a decent campaign so far, and I like that. The whole world is following this war, ( even IndiaUncut these days, Google’s number one search result for ‘India Blog’) and the funny part is that it in all probability, it might not even matter. The silent bystander John McCain with his decades of experience could just sweep this election away – after all, I am pretty sure than Obama supporters who have nearly come to hate Clinton over the last 3 months will not readily vote for her in November if she wins. And nor are the die-hard Clinton supporters going to vote for her inexperienced opponent Obama.

In all probability, the supporters of the losing nominee will be apathetic towards the elections after their favourite is off the ballot and will not even vote…. if not the more drastic choice of voting for McCain himself! The only thing McCain has to worry about right now is to try and stay in the news, and generate some funds for his campaign. All the mud-slinging of his opponents are being done by each other, at each other, and when he faces his bruised candidate in November, half the work would have already been done.

What a hilarious anti-climax it will be for us to join and finance McCain in his hunt for ‘them terrists’ for another 4 years in the mountains of Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s so pathetic it should make you laugh :-D. As for me, I am going to try my best to stop following this possibly and probably meaningless democratic contest, and waste my time doing something else.

If you’ve noticed a slump in the frequency of blog posts, well, it’s because of my latest internet adventure, my YouTube channel (link in my FB/orkut, not on this website). Though I have plans for a short movie some time this year, all I’ve uploaded so far are some music videos of covers I’ve been practicing. So far, it’s been fun, and hey, it gives me a reason to pick up my guitar every once in a while and prevents the cobwebs from conquering a new neighborhood!

Spending a lot of time on YT these days, I’ve noticed that there isn’t much desi content out there. It seems to be pretty much American-dominated as of now, and I’m really curious to see what it will look like once video uploads become more mainstream in India. I’d give this about 2 years. Digi-cams and high internet speeds are increasingly becoming a part of the middle class, and soon enough, I’m sure we’ll be seeing some good original desi content on our screens ! As of now, most of the desi videos seem to be from desi diaspora or mainstream TV. Here’s a countdown of my favourite desi YT picks:

(8) Tamil rap song ‘Kuttali’ – By Malaysian-desi rap group ( I swear one of them looks like Snoop Dog! )

(7) It’s the Singhsons ! – Punjabi version of the Simpsons intro, pretty ok.

(6) Gay Indian stand-up comedy act – How often do you hear of a gay, indian comedian? His video is hilarious :)

(5) Indian Cricket – Great fielding moments – Set to a pretty sweet punjabi song

(4) Reverse Outsourcing – LOL. Hard to find a comedian funnier or at least as funny as Russel Peters!

(3) Sheena Melwani (Cover of Alicia Keys’ No One) – Sheena’s getting pretty popular on YouTube, and she should get signed pretty soon, if not already. Good luck to her. Her name sounds desi and she looks desi as well, but I don’t know any more details other than her being an awesome singer.

(2) Penn Masala’s Facebook Skit - My #2 desi video pick…. Not only hilarious but great sounding as well. Excellent work, this was featured on YouTube. Great video, great voices. Superb job by the folks at U Penn.

(1) Indian Rap in 5 languages - Very catchy tune from an SF-based desi rap group. Best desi rap I’ve heard so far.

Hope you liked the list! If you have some other favs, please post the link in the comments section! Happy surfing :)

(Indian Parliament, src: Wikipedia Commons)

A long time ago back in high school, when I was probably in my 9th or 10th grade, we had an essay writing competition on ‘50 years of Indian independence’, which I took part in. Having been abroad for a lot of my childhood, I did not harbor as much patriotism for my country back then as most of my friends, and was often very critical of India, often annoyingly so. Anyway, I remember writing in that essay that the Indian government really meant nothing to me, and that I felt no patriotism towards a country that was corrupt and sustained societies filled with stone-age customs like the caste system and dowry. 50 years since gaining independence, I argued, we have nothing much to be proud of.

To say the least, my essay was controversial :-P and I really thought that I would be summoned by the vice principal… in fact, my English teacher even told me that this very summoning was going to happen pretty soon. Word went out far and wide and I was asked about it by a friend in church that Sunday (who wasn’t even studying in my school anymore, but heard of it through his sister’s friend!). There were thinly veiled comments at me all through that week during English class, and I was quite nervous about the whole thing, quite frankly.

Luckily for me, nothing much happened and the incident was slowly forgotten by everyone… whew!

The reason I remembered this a few days ago was because one of my good friends from school who recently saw this site was shocked that I was following politics so closely… You see, I have always been quite apathetic towards politics, and to me, it was always a dirty ‘word’ , and a dirty ‘world’ as well. I blame Indian politicians for this, for the crores worth of scandals they were involved in at the time made me hate the system so much that I was just left with nothing more than apathy for my country.

It is true that American politics is relatively ‘cleaner’ than Indian politics, but in concept, both are much the same. It is still ‘politics as usual’. If Indians have bribes, the Americans have lobbies. If Indians are bogged down by caste politics, the Americans are bogged down by race politics. So what has really changed, and why have I stopped ‘not giving a damn’ about politics any more? Some might say it’s all a part of growing up, but that is actually a very broad answer… there is something a lot more specific than that. Well, the answer is simple:

It lies in another dirty word, called Taxes.

When we were back in school, it was ‘them’ against ‘us’. But now that we are earning, it is ‘them with our money‘ against ‘us’. Reading the Fountainhead has all the more increased my awareness of what is really going on, and seeing things from an individualistic point of view, I am forced to ask myself – what do I gain by giving a portion of my wealth to society through taxes? I will get back to this at the very end.

Universal health care is a system where the government helps reduce the costs of health care… those of you in the United States will know how exorbitantly priced a visit to a doctor is, or the cost of a simple X-ray or test. The following is a diagram of countries attempting Universal Health Care. Please enlarge this and spend at least 2 minutes looking at the countries and the description on the bottom-left corner of the image before you continue:

(src: Wikipedia commons)

If the above diagram is to be believed, and I hope it is, for the editors would have surely been careful on such an important topic, then there are two very interesting observations to be made:

• The US is the only developed country with no universal health care in place
• Iraq and Afghanistan have universal health care paid for by the US war budget

So what does this mean to every person currently employed in the United States, myself included? It simply means that I will:

• Pay for the bombing of Iraq and Afghanistan
• Pay for the injuries of the Iraqi and Afghani civilians
• but I will be left fending for myself if I get hurt here in the USA !

.

.

And that, my friends, is why I follow politics… to be aware of how my money is being spent – not my country’s money, not my government’s money, not my parents’ money – but mine. To know who is out there to rip me off, and who is out there with policies that benefit me and the people I care about. It really can’t get any more selfish than that – to hope that the money you worked so hard to earn benefits you in the best way possible. After all, we expect ‘value for money’ in every product we buy and every service we pay for – There is no reason that we should expect any less from our government.

[ Please read the amazing collection of 'Where your taxes go' articles by Amit Verma from the India Uncut blog to see how else your money is being spent, if you are in India. This one was particularly alarming ]