So tonight I decided to try and imbibe a
full-length movie in Hindi (
even if it is a children's animated film). This, of course, led me to some pretty aimless Internet surfing, because if that damn ... being or whatever ... says "Narayan, narayan" again, I might throw my newly purchased set-top box out the window. This might also be rage that I've been desperately trying to learn Hindi and am still at a pretty elementary level (exhibit A being trying to explain to the guard/receptionist at work today that I needed to get a new key, which resulted in much parroting of "
Naya chhabi? Chhabi?" and a very nice guard man turning bright red and suppressing what must have been one hell of a laugh).
AAAAANYhow, so
I was on Metafilter and someone linked to
The Beast, which attracted me because it basically said that "you" (you know, the "you" that
Time loved so much?) are the cause of all the world's problems -- or, rather, "you" is No. 16 on a list of the year's 50 most loathsome people.
Not so interesting -- I have a healthy degree of self-hatred without my Internets turning on me -- but then I got to
No. 25 on the list, Deepak Chopra.
And I quote, "
Charges: Widely regarded by new age simpletons to be a font of wisdom, Chopra peddles a chutney-flavored weak anthropic principle based on the usual dippy claptrap about "universal energy" and a profoundly erroneous extrapolation of quantum physics. An accused plagiarist and sexual harasser, Chopra entreats his readers to abandon their silly religious traditions—and adopt his. Pitching a watered-down Hinduism as some perfect union of science and spirituality while supporting Intelligent Design and purporting to "prove" the existence of an afterlife, Chopra’s work proves only one thing: he’s just another mystical moron providing a psychic security blanket to soft-skulled suckers. Exhibit A: Suggested a Middle East Disney World and Iraqi Nickelodeon to mollify their rage.
Sentence: Five years shoveling actual bullshit."
Dog? Word. Word. Also, I'm fairly sure he was testing the waters to proposition me a few years ago; it was my first assignment in Delhi and I accompanied a fellow journalist who, of all things, had forgotten a pen and pad of paper and needed me to transcribe his interview. At some point, Chopra stopped addressing said journalist and instead started asking me about myself, before finally asking us up to his room for ... mystical voodoo? A copy of his latest book? Something kinky and Kama Sutra-esque?
I rest my case. I also return to my movie.
Content localization is the name of the game, and Disney knows it -- just one reason its recent partnership with Yash Raj Films is such a watershed. Yash Raj will create Disney-branded films, voiced by Bollywood actors, according to The Wall Street Journal; the paper notes that India has more people younger than 14 than the U.S. has total population.
