Fortunately for me, my mother loved travel. Our first non-beach family trip abroad - to England, France, and Switzerland - came when I was 11, and thereafter, we often tagged along on my father's European business trips.
I didn't feel the need to rebel as a teenager. From age nine to 16, I went to school in Montreux in Switzerland, and it was heaven. I went to England for the Easter holidays, Cyprus for Christmas and summer holidays, and I was delighted to have that independence.
I spent my junior year in Switzerland. On the way back home, I spent some time in England, and I remember going to Hyde Park Corner. And there was a Roman Catholic priest in his collar, standing on a soapbox, preaching the Catholic faith and being heckled by a group. And I thought, 'My goodness.' I thought that was admirable.
Indian films have this obsession with hygienic clean spaces, even though the country's not so clean. They're either shot in the studios or shot in London, in America, in Switzerland - clean places. Everywhere except India.
Growing up in Switzerland, you learn German pretty much from day one in school. You learn French and Italian as well. I took English as an extra language because I figured that was the language of the world.
In the '90s, there was a big wrestling boom in Switzerland with Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, and all those guys. It was on television in Switzerland on a German TV station for a year or so. That's when I saw wrestling for the first time. I was in the fifth or sixth grade and was a fan of it right away.
Threats of trade protectionism, plus unilateral actions on the exchange-rate front, such as the heavy interventions of China, Japan, and Switzerland in the currency markets - not to mention the retaliatory tariffs recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives - endanger growth prospects and could further depress financial market confidence.
So far, therefore, as we can draw safe conclusions from a single specimen, there has been no marked change of race in the human population of Switzerland during the periods above considered.
When America installs a minimum income, it's going to be doing it in a very different historical context than Switzerland or Sweden or Germany, or any other country might do it. And we're doing it in a context where it has the potential, I think, for much better consequences than in those other countries.
While I have been to Switzerland, Stockholm, and other parts of Europe and Canada, I don't have a specific place that is my favorite. I just represent Earth.
