Here is why movie Paranormal Activity scared me as much as it did. It had nothing to do with demons or ghosts.

It tapped into the most primal of fears. You wake up with a start in the middle of the night convinced that someone is in your house.

It used to happen to me as a kid. I’d wake up convince there was someone in the bedroom. I could almost make out their shadow in the room. I could imagine them crouching in the dark. I would lie frozen in bed, convinced that any sign I gave of life would be the end of me. Sometimes if I was lucky I’d drift back to sleep. Sometimes I would have to wait until the first gray light of dawn seeped through the curtains and make me realize there was no one in there, just my clutter. I could have called out to my parents. Or my sister. I could have turned on the flashlight. But instead all I knew to do was lie still and hope whoever it was didn’t realize I was awake.

If I needed to go to the bathroom, I’d just lie in bed clenching my bladder. The bathroom required running across two dark hallways and then turning on the light. And who knew who lurked out there.

Of course, there was nothing a self respecting robber would want from my room. Scores of Enid Blyton adventure stories (some of which probably had something to do with the intruder-in-the-dark nightmares anyway), a globe, school books and endless little craft projects – none of them worth much on the black market. But thieves were not so picky in our neighborhood in Calcutta. Once someone broke into the house next door. All the doors to the rooms were locked. So they just stole all the slippers and shoes neatly lined up outside the door.

Paranormal Activity was about that fear. There is someone in the house. What was worse was we saw the couple asleep in bed but knew what they didn’t realize yet – there was someone in the house, and it was coming up the stairs, towards their bedroom.

It’s being called the scariest movie since Blair Witch Project. But Blair Witch didn’t scare me because as a city kid in India I had no experience going camping in the woods. That was a fear I couldn’t really tap into – the spookiness of dark woods at night. This was more like Sixth Sense on a Blair Witch budget and minus a star like Bruce Willis. So it all felt more real, unfolding as if on someone’s home movie.

In fact, these days so much of our drama unfolds on home movies and Iphones and Youtube. Whether it’s a Chinese lady and an African American woman coming to fisticuffs on the bus in San Francisco, or a Chicago teenager being beaten to death, the horrors of day to day life are immediately uploaded into our consciousness. Paranormal Activity feels like that – as if it is cobbled together from home video and a geeky tech-savvy world. The normal activity of obsessively recording everything about our lives suddenly tips over into the dark side.

“Zoom in, zoom in,” an unknown woman exhorts the person filming the beating of Derrion Albert in Chicago. Paranormal Activity zooms in and we are all watching with bated breath.

In my scaredy cat childhood once the sunlight broke through and the cacophony of the day erupted around me, the demons of the night seemed far away and ridiculous. Until night fell again, and the house settled down to sleep around me. In Paranormal Activity daytime brings no respite. There is the recording of the night which they have to go through and analyze. All the things that go bump in the night are still there saved as .wav files for your daytime listening terror. Put down the camera, the young woman tells her husband. He didn’t.

Technology was supposed to save the couple. But it sent them tumbling down the rabbit hole instead, trapping them in their nightmares.

That’s the really creepy thing about Paranormal Activity.

Obama???!!!

That was my friend in India’s Facebook status about President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Seven hours later he was obviously rethinking the whole thing.

His status changed.

Obama’s prize gives me hope, in a sense. It means you can be awarded for BEING someone, rather that DOING something. And that’s good news for non-doer individuals like me.

That is hopeful, indeed.

As another Indian journalist friend quipped – Perhaps I can get a Nobel for literature too. I haven’t written a book but I might some day.

Phew that’s a relief. I’ve often written about the pressure of Indians being projected as a super achieving minority. You can’t just write a book, you must win the Booker. In 1913, Rabindranath Tagore became the first Indian (and Asian) to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Generations later Indians are still trying to climb out of his shadow. I read recently that his Nobel prize was stolen from the library where it was housed. I wonder if it was some poor wanna-be writer tired of always being compared to the great man. Unfavorably.

I have gone through the chagrin of winning a prize in school and being sent to the neighbor kids to display the prize so that their mothers could shame their less fortunate children.

But for that you had to actually DO something like win a spelling bee. Now you can just talk about doing it. This is a prize for potential.

Cynics could say it might just be insurance. If you give him the Peace Prize maybe he won’t start any new wars. It’s the pre-emptive peace prize.

My friend Dr. Meera Srinivasan thinks Obama should just write a humble letter rejecting the prize and then “and then selecting someone trying to find real peace in Africa or South America, or numerous other places, where violence and poverty and dictatorships have killed and imprisoned thousands of social workers, social activists and social reformers who have committed their entire life to bringing real peace.”

True. That would be the Nobel thing to do. But it’s too late for that now. When the elections were happening in the United States, it was clear that almost anywhere in the world (except the U.S.) Obama would win by a landslide. Now the Nobel committee is giving him that symbolic crown.

Obama has become the global equivalent of the “teacher’s pet.” I guess that’s better than the Bush-style you-are-with-us-or-against-us “schoolyard bully.” But where does that leave America?

I imagine him going from country to country being forced to show off his medal while the Sarkozys and Browns and Chavezes glower resentfully.

“Look at that Obama, not even a year in office, and he’s already won a medal. Why can’t you win something nice?”

But what will happen if he really manages to end war, pass health insurance and immigration reform?

Nobel of Nobels?

Sainthood?

Umm, can we just have our president back?

And before he gets too cocky, Obama can remind himself that lots of people who do something instead of being someone have never won the Peace Prize. He quotes one of them often. His name is Mahatma Gandhi.

I first craved California when I read Vikram Seth’s Golden Gate. Written entirely in sonnets, it was about iguanas, a band called The Liquid Sheep, Silicon Valley, fine wine and love gone awry. “The Great California Novel” Gore Vidal called it. And it was written by an outsider.

Perhaps it needed an outsider to write the great California novel, to really recognize California for the marvel it was – beyond being the 8th largest GDP in the world.

Now another outsider, a British newspaper, has recognized California for what it has become. A failed state.

It’s no coincidence that outsiders made California and now outsiders write its epitaph. We came to California from all corners of the world. And we stayed to swim in its lapis lazuli pools.

The nation’s biggest minority majority state was a harbinger of the future. It is now being held up as a warning of the future. Implicit in this warning is that this is what happens when you let everyone in. There goes the neighborhood.

Basta California. Who do we blame for this? The governor? Proposition 13? Illegal immigrants? Or the sneaking feeling that in a minority majority state no one feels any responsibility for the state anymore. Everyone wants their own swimming pool. And nobody wants their property tax raised. We all cashed in and bankrupted the state.

Even as San Francisco lauded itself as a multicultural city, a survey at the beginning of this century found almost 30 percent hesitant to elect a foreign-born mayor. It was a more diverse city than it had ever been but also a more segregated city. The Latino areas were turning more Hispanic. The white enclaves growing paler. And the Asian neighborhoods were growing more Asian.

Was the California dream was curdling into islands of ethnicity?

But a failed state? Isn’t that a bit too much of a leap?

Foreign Policy Magazine has thought a lot about this matter. They put out a Failed State Index. Here they are describing a failed state.

A perfect storm of state failure is now brewing there: disappearing oil and water reserves; a mob of migrants, flooding in from the failed state next door; and a weak government increasingly unable to keep things running.

That’s Yemen. But it could be California. (Except for the failed state next door. In California’s case, Nevada is just clinking along)

California does not feature on that Failed State Index but it can take heart from it. A failed state ranking doesn’t mean much (just as the 8th largest economy ranking doesn’t mean much if the state government gives you an IOU).

Zimbabwe is Failed State Number 2 while Iraq is Failed State Number 6. But for geo-political reasons failure in Iraq would be far worse than failure in Zimbabwe. There are no American troops in Zimbabwe. Iraq could explode sending crash waves across the region. Zimbabwe could just implode, I guess.

So the question for California, if it must fail as a state is how should it fall? Should it go out with a bang taking down a few economies with it? Or could it implode quietly and slide into the Pacific with minimum fuss?

It can also choose how it would like to fail. Somalia is failing because its government is non-existent. Burma is failing because its government is choking it. California can decide. Even in failure there are options like everything else in America – white, rye, sourdough or wholewheat?

The Failed State Index offers some clues as to how to be a responsible failed state. And California being a newbie here could take some tips.

Failed state number 10 is Pakistan. I remember interviewing the young Pakistani writer Ali Sethi. He said his journalist father had once been hauled to prison for daring to say Pakistan might be heading towards being a failed state. We Californians need some help from Pakistan.

Here is one tip – location, location, location. The US doesn’t know what to do with it, but doesn’t dare to pull the plug on aid to it. It just keeps hoping the military aid will be directed at Al Qaeda and Taliban and not the Indian border. The Pakistanis know that if they really rooted out the Taliban and Al Qaeda it’s all over for them. They learned that when the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan and the US washed its hands off Pakistan.

As the Pakistani journalist Tariq Ali acerbically remarked then “Pakistan was the condom that the Americans needed to enter Afghanistan. We’ve served our purpose and they think we can be just flushed down the toilet.”

So lesson one in surviving as a failed state – don’t serve your purpose completely. Be weak, be dysfunctional, but don’t do everything they ask you to do. Then they’ll dump you completely. Otherwise you might just stay on life-support.

Lesson two – become too big to fail. Ask the banks. They managed to do quite well by clinging to that mantra. California could easily embrace that idea by enlisting Hollywood. Aid, you must know, is limited. Whom do you help when so many need it? asks Foreign Policy. The answer is clear. You help the big guys.

Lesson three – have something that no one wants (Al Qaeda or Kim Jong Il) and they will pay to keep it from getting out. You become the quarantine for the world’s ills. But California has to be careful to not fail too much. Somalia (Failed State Number 1) was apparently so failed that even Al Qaeda had a tough time operating there. So California needs to know when to stop its slide. When the undocumented immigrants really stop coming across the border, that’s the canary in our coal mine.

Lesson four – it also helps apparently if your leader is perceived to be irrational, crazy and prone to nuclear tricks. Nice guys come last. It’s time for Arnold to let out Conan the Barbarian.

Lesson five – You could also pursue something that scares the hell out of everyone (nuclear weapons, Iran is Failed State Number 6) and that means the US will come and talk to you in Geneva. I am not sure what California could have that would scare everyone into handling us with kid gloves.

But not all is lost. Even in failed states there is possibility. Prof. Vivek Wadhwa who studies immigration has pointed out that the great benefits of recession is it’s also a time when entrepreneurs can try out new ideas for cheap. The garage in Palo Alto becomes cheap enough to rent to launch a company. One day that might become Apple.

The human spirit is eminently resourceful, even in a failed state. Ask the pirates of Somalia.

California could have a way out. In 2002 when the US government wanted to register all Iranians and started detaining them without notice, terrified Iranians in Southern California didn’t know who to go to for help. Eventually they turned to the local Spanish language paper La Prensa. Hispanics, they reasoned had much more experience in dealing with law enforcement and immigration detention. La Prensa not only was willing to listen. It created a section in its paper called La Prensa Persa.

Many people think California’s weakness is its heterogeneity, its buffet of fruits and nuts, its mindboggling mix of Vietnamese and Indians and Mexicans and Irish and Hmong and Blacks and Afghans and more. But maybe therein lies its salvation as well.

These are people who have known war, famine, and yes, failed states. I bet we have Californians from almost all the top 60 failed states. They reinvented themselves in California. Maybe they could reinvent California as well.

The Failed State Index could be the Yellow Pages where we find the saviors of the Golden State.

We could just call them the Failed State Warriors.

It’s probably just as well that Barack Obama’s magic touch didn’t work on the International Olympic Committee. The election of Obama has certainly reduced the number of globetrotting Americans who try to pass for Canadian. But he can’t just touch down for five hours and seal the deal.

But the most interesting quote I read about Chicago’s drubbing in the Olympic hosting race was a question from an I.O.C. member from Pakistan.

Syed Shahid Ali asked how smooth it would be for foreigners to enter the United States for the Games because as he put it, coming to the US these days can be “a harrowing experience.”

This is a slap in the face reminder that the election of Obama has changed a certain style and the image but the levers of bureaucracy underneath have not necessarily changed course.

It would not just be Olympic athletes from countries like Pakistan or Iraq. Scientists, artists, students are all facing the same hurdles getting into the US. And many of them just don’t want to come. Who wants the airport humiliation?

A couple of years ago I remember the San Francisco International Film Festival complaining that many eminent filmmakers couldn’t get visas. The Iranian contingent was especially hurt by the visa clampdown. Tragically, Iran has probably the most illustrious filmmaking industry in the region. The very renowned director Abbas Kiarostami was denied a visa when he was coming to the US to debut his film Ten. A couple of other directors also decided not to come as an act of solidarity.

In 2006, a group of Iranian academics and scientists coming for the Northern California reunion of the prestigious Sharif Institute of Technology found themselves turned away from US airports even after they got the visa. Behnam Kamrani who lives in Sweden and works for a US company got to spend nine hours in the airport before being turned back. But he considered himself one of the “lucky ones” because he was not handcuffed.

In 2004 for the first time since 1971, the number of foreign students enrolled in US colleges and universities declined thanks to the “war on terror”. Now the Census says for the first time in three decades the number of foreign-born Americans in this country tapered off slightly in 2008.

Nobody wants to be the visa officer that let in the terrorist. But instead of analyzing Chicago’s downfall in the IOC as a litmus test of Obama’s magic, it should be a wake up call for the US.

The world didn’t reject Obama. It’s gotten the symbolism of his election. Now it’s time to go beyond the symbols. It wants to see the promised change in action. And five hours of Obama isn’t enough change.

Rio, apparently was change the IOC could believe in.

India is the middle of Twittergate.

Shashi Tharoor the high flying minster of state for external affairs in India was almost felled by Twitter.

A Twitter fan asked Tharoor if in light of the government’s austerity drive he was going to now fly “cattle class” instead of business

“Absolutely, in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows,” Tharoor tweeted back.

It was funny. But not in a country of holy cows. All hell broke loose. His own party members jostled with each other calling for his head, many of them no doubt gleeful to take down the Johnny-come-lately a chhota peg or two. Sonia Gandhi, the party chief apparently called him in for a knuckle rap. The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh eventually tried to defuse the situation by calling it for what it was – a joke. Tharoor had to apologize (via Twitter) saying he meant no disrespect to economy class passengers. Or cows, I guess.

Tharoor, the former UN spokesman, is media savvy and urbane, but obviously mis-read the power of symbols in India.

India is all about symbols. Status symbols – which school does your son go to, which gym do you go to, which apartment complex in which gated community do you live in.

Religious symbols – The symbolic birthplaces of gods and mythological figures and their representations in art can provoke riots.

A politician mines those symbols. Each party chooses its symbol carefully because a voter might be illiterate but he knows his symbols. “I always vote for the hand,” our old maid used to say. The Congress symbol was the hand. She had no idea who the local candidate was but she knew the symbol.

Tharoor had already committed a symbol faux pas. He had been ensconced in a five star hotel while the government was going on a very public austerity drive. It didn’t matter that he was paying his own bills. It was the symbolism that counted.

Days after the story surfaced that was THE topic of conversation on all the television talk shows in India, complete with entire panels of experts. The irony of all that talk about austerity on a media that was completely built around consumerism, whose soap opera stars glittered with jewelry and fabulous saris, whose ads were exhorting everyone to buy new appliances, was lost on everyone.

His Twittering was a symbol too – of a new kind of minister, accessible, available, media-friendly and very very visible. He had over 170,000 Twitter followers. You could barely turn on the television without seeing him. And now he’s been tripped by his own symbol. As my friend Mira Kamdar said now Indian politicians will have to think before they tweet.

You could say this is the starchy old school politics, of Nehru caps and obtuse press releases that no one ever read, having its revenge on the new social media wunderkinds. They will say the old slow meandering ways India worked can be frustrating in an age of Twitter but are safer.

But Tharoor, smarting from Twittergate is no doubt getting a crash course in the power of symbols. But he could have just learned from the master – Mahatma Gandhi who always insisted on traveling third class in trains. When there was no third class, they had to attach one for the sake of the symbolism. As Sarojini Naidu, a noted wit in her time quipped then, “It costs a lot to keep Gandhi poor.” Good thing, she didn’t have Twitter.