Last year, I told my father the true story of how some over-zealous VHP guys, elated over India’s testingof their nuke at Pokhran, wanted to "gather the sacred dust of Pokhran and scatter it in the four corners ofIndia." (Sacred radioactive dust. Uh huh. Right. Let’s rub it on our foreheads, why don’t we? Let’suse it as prasad, how about that?) So, predictably, as soon as the war rhetoric and breast-beating betweenIndia and Pakistan intensified, the US embassy, consulate and warden weren’t the only ones telling me toleave the country immediately; my father said: "Those macho fundamentalist types have no idea what they’vetriggered off. I’m sending you a plane ticket. Be on a flight by next week." Luckily for me, I decided towait for results of the Armitage talks. Unluckily for the Indian economy, a lot of foreigners took theirembassy warnings seriously, and took themselves and/or their money out of India.