music? I don't think so Tim

Thanks to the telecom revolution & increased purchasing power, everyone seems to have cellphones.

When I was in China, everyone seemed to have a cellphone.
Now when I'm in India, everyone seems to have a cellphone.

So now mothers can know where their daughters are, (or at least where the daughters tell their mothers they are, which at most times is fictional), the vegetable vendor knows when the wholesalers open & incidentally, in an unrelated development it unleashed the hellish scourge of ringtones unto the earth.

I began noticing this in China. We had a nice spacious office in Shanghai without cubicles, which I really liked. But, then the ringtones took over. We had about 30 people in my section and all 30 had a ringtone. Not one of them had a normal "ring ring" or "beep beep" of a telephone. Each one's desk would periodically explode in a joyous expression of individuality manifesting itself through a chosen tune. The especially irritating ones were the polyphonic ones: loud, raucous & often cheesy.
You get the point: it grated.

So when I came back to India I thought Aha! I've left the scourge behind, little did I know...the fascination for being ostentatious coupled with the presence of Bollywood in every Indian had escaped me. Whether in the office, in a cafe or in the dang theatre, the ringtones are hunting me down, pushing me over the screaming edge of insanity.
Oh no...and I think Indians have just discovered "Caller Tones" as well....there is no escape...there goes my colleague's "rapture" ring tone again....& I put my earphones on.