in the summer of 1988 indian sanitation workers all went on strike and made demands of the government. the reason? they wanted more episodes of a television program commissioned.

the program was the 1987 adaptation of the "ramayana", the ancient hindu epic.

let me ask you this. does it seem supremely dumb that a tv show is the reason pine tree twitter exists? how much dumber is it that the ramayana tv show led to a "hindu spiritual reawakening" in india and contributed to the rise of the current ruling party, the BJP?

that's right. indians watched an indian version of game of thrones 30 years ago and because of that now modi is in charge.

say what you want about italy, russia, turkey, albania, poland etc. india is the *real* "funny country".