Oh God Bless us, God forgive us!

Thursday  - 11:00 am - The man of the house is off for work and has left behind a wide world outside the window of our hotel room for me. As I feel tempted to head my way back to the room and permanently fix my eyes on the beautiful view of the bustling city of Toronto, I try and finish off my daily work outs with utmost zest and zeal. It's challenging enough to maintain your fitness and keep a strict watch on the weighing scale when you are not at home and can't help but gorge on the best of gourmet Hors D'oeuvres that the hotel has to offer you. Hence, for an overtly self-conscious me, squeezing in even for thirty minutes is better than nothing. 

12:00 pm - The cerulean horizon, a glass of freshly squashed Orange juice with my Ipad flipped open gives rise to multiple subjects for contemplation. The skyscrapers stand lofty and unyielding in its identity, yet they look so cut off and isolated from the earth. Each of the towers bear a story of their own. Our temporary home dazzles in the name of Sheraton and every structure in and around is of some historical momentousness or fulcrum of the business district of downtown. I have been hearing and reading a great deal about The Old City Hall for some time - one of the most haunted buildings in Canada. I have always found myself in an uncanny and strange fascination for digging deep in such mysterious and paranormal tales from the past of various places. Even in my home state, I have very recently done some research on the most cursed avenue of New Jersey - Clinton Road. The creepy accounts from the mouths of the onlookers based on the disturbing factual details that they have to share continue to spur a sense of yearning for the old, unearthly and unfathomable in me.

As I plan my journey through the transcripts of the eerie happenings at the center of Old City Hall, I can hardly wait to visit the Toronto Public library and start my new supernatural analysis that is going to be one of a kind. Standing by the window, I try hard to probe my eyes through a multitude of superstructures and settle for this 1890s building that serves now as the city's municipal court and also one of its courtrooms (33) is claimed to be haunted by the spirits of the last men condemned to hang in Canada. 

 

12:30 pm - As I start scrolling down my mailbox and start composing a couple of unavoidable replies, I hear the Old City Hall clock tick-tock in a phantom language. Soon the church bell rings and it's time for the afternoon mass. 

I am forced to leave my workstation once again and ponder upon the juxtaposing treaties of life. Moment of truth and acceptance as it may be defined, there must be several parents praying for the long life of their little ones during the mass, contrarily I can visualize some parents also counting the numbered days of their children admitted in the sick kid's hospital located next to us. The idea of such foundations and Hospices continue to muddle my tranquility and ability to decipher the paradoxical nature of survival and death. 

13:00 pm - The man is back to hotel for lunch and we a grab a bite of some garlic breads. I stoically glance at the butter case kept next to the two bowls of French-Onion-Mushroom soup. Now, let's accept it - Asking the husband - 'Main thoda butter le lun? I guess I burned out enough calories for today' and his spontaneous and patented reply - 'Kyon, maine tumhe mana kiya hai kya?'  - will all be an unnecessary baloney for the busy hubby's hurried break. 

As a matter of fact, we all have been banging our heads against a brick wall while trying to cope up with the sense of guilt that too much oleo can cause us too much trouble in the fitting room. We haven't been victorious in breaking free from the age-old myth of how a woman should ideally look before and after marriage, how many pounds she might at the maximum gain so as to successfully eliminate the risk of being assumed as expectant!  Picking herself up from that seesawing affair of either remaining a proud possessor of figura de ánfora, or slipping into the shoes of a slightly chubby and over sized Dev-il-may-care newly wedded wife has been tormenting for many women for decades. They have somewhere been made to forget how to be comfortable in their own skin. The moment you pretty satisfactorily reconcile yourself with this post marriage 'passing phase' of few extra inches, you get to realize it's high time you write an open mental note stating - 'Dear world, a lot of things like your failed attempts to investigate why I'm putting on weight are none of your business. I am not pregnant, I'm just happy in my conjugal life.' 

14:00 pm - One of the top stories of US Daily appears in front of me and it reads - 'Pregnant Kim Kardashian Covers Baby Bump in Rock and Roll Outfit for Sisters' Day Out: See the Photos!'

The fourth (Thurs) day of the hostage situation couldn't have been more jinxed with Kimmy darling taking over as Jesus Christ spreading her glory everywhere to be worshiped by not only a certain generation of younger men and women abut also the entire press. Sometimes she is seen breaking the internet with too much oil and grease which becomes a news as big as an enlarged buttock, and often her bare and dare see-through becomes a grist for the gossip mill over those all exploding out of a White corset poster girl image with flowing hair extensions and unusually plumped up bee-stung lips. I am paranoid to leaf through the Cosmopolitan off late. I signed up for Scoop Whoop a year back to enjoy realistic first hand narratives from all age groups but that bliss too has been snatched away from me. Every other heading seems to be superimposed and who has filled in the role of drawing us closer to pay homage at the altar of the notion of perfect womanhood is someone very fake pulling the wool over our eyes with some silicone implants, or some Botox and fillers  and casting some spell of a melanin surgery.

Is this what we all are struggling to engage ourselves in every morning when we face the mirror? A real-life vanity fair where we keep chasing the ever-evasive routine perception of a picture perfect woman? Or are we happy with a dash of pink lip gloss, a stroke of kohl, and getting a hair cut that suits us the best? Doesn't that sound more like respecting ourselves in true sense and redefining beauty and that sex appeal in our own terms? The other day I came across a very meaningful video which in a way exceeded my expectations from the virtual world and I didn't hesitate passing it on to every girl I know and love. It talks about the issues of pressurizing one's own self to live up to the prototypical essence of the iconic plastic beauty of women and throws a volley of questions on if we are showing our girls the right path. In connection with learning the rudimentary aspects of grooming and personality development, I remember our trainees undergoing intensive programs of self-familiarization, confidence-building and effective communication. It makes me sad when I see the younger lot nowadays aligning more towards positing an artificial persona and starting their day with layers of make-up from a very delicate age yet incapable of presenting themselves as they should be leaving a strong and positive impact on others. Looking smart and behaving sexy isn't just about how revealing clothes one must choose or how far or away one is from a size-zero frame. One requires to surpass the boundaries of impressing people sitting behind the computers and stand up for reasons that will make them special for who they are. We get swayed by what we like to see and our susceptibility as viewers lies in the irony - we are nothing but puppets in the hands of some amazing makers and producers of optical illusion, which necessitates huge money and publicity galore in the showbizz every hour.

15:00 pm - Updating status on Twitter and Face book with horrendous spellings and a shocking rainbow printed display is claimed to convey high regards for equality these days. We all know by now that 'love wins'. At the same time we aren't still legally, socially and moreover, mentally prepared to give nation-wide approval to  same-sex marriages. We are continuously yelling the LGBT message of personal choice aloud and applauding the United States for making it legitimate. But have we ever asked ourselves - how unbiased or egalitarian do we behave with each other and project our society as liberal and fair in its judgments in our day to day life? This concern of equal rights quite congenitally pushes me into a reflecting mode.

In last twenty four hours, all I could see NDTV and CNN covering is our Indian veteran actress turned MP Hema Malini's wounded images. I could in fact, never get the fundamentals of such a powerful media in our country. Every time something good or bad happens, the prime focus is always on the elite class of the society, rather, on the rich and famous. Our Bajrangi Bhaijaan Salman Khan's case of hit-and-run and then the judiciary letting him go scot-free with a bail is the biggest insight into such unfortunate state of a Swachh Bharat. Far from 'Swachh', as it seems to me, no politician, or spiritual leader can bring in that extensive cleansing of the system until we start changing our mentality and outlook towards things happening around us. My understanding is below the level of how things work in a highly gimmicky fashion and yet we keep hoping for the so called 'achhe din' to arrive like a Knight in his armors and rescue us from such distressed and devastated social as well political milieu. Ever since Dharam pa ji's better half's Mercedes has rammed into another vehicle in Dausa state of Rajasthan, the nature of the brouhaha has been worrying me. Apart from the actress, there were other people involved in the grievous incident too. How much we know of them? What happened to them? There was a two year old girl child who passed away due to the mishap and her parents and brothers are still trying to recover the trauma of the accident. It's either at the cost of someone's life (which of course, doesn't seem to have any value in India except for that life turns into a legendary phenomena) or your freedom and personal space is sacrificed to an extent that you are made to feel way above the normal human rank. Besides making it a 'big' news, isn't the media way too enthusiastic to butt in the privacy of the big fishes? Be it even the highest man on the totem pole, doesn't all of us deserve our share of privacy at least at certain points in time? Who would really enjoy being captured on the camera repetitively and featured in the front-line report for that one moment of loss and crisis when she bleeds out of injuries from a collision of two moving vehicles? As much as the fact that the little departed soul 'Chinni' wasn't rushed to the hospital immediately after the tragedy occurred, owing to the entire attention directed towards catering to the medical emergencies of our honorable MP breaks my heart, I feel equally sorry for all the dignitaries when they are deliberately besmirched in the eyes of the aam admi. When we read of such predilections taking over and dis-valuing the innocent and the helpless, another destiny's child is subjected to first-class star treatment. Can there be any distinction in the color of both of their blood? Or perhaps in the shock and pain that both the families of the victims might be going through now? It's very easy to take up an extreme stand for the heck of criticism and portray someone as a high-muck-a-muck, but nobody gives it a thought that change begins from each of us. How many times do we reach out to others for help? People at times remember a face just as a source of a warm and healing hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. But how many of us are ready to take that first step?

As my favorite Maya Angelou rightly stated - we all have been through some kind of seclusion, some sort of wreckage still exists within all of us. Certain external agonies often cause us long-term and irreparable damages. Some pass as mare weather super storms and some linger on to haunt us as spiritual super storms for the rest of our lives. The difference in social status, cast, color, creed and sexual orientation is nothing but a hindrance on our road to evolution into a better individual, and a more civilized community. Every humanist has shown us the gateway to enlightenment. Each of us is more alike than we are unlike. We can understand how it feels to be alienated and not be considered as equivalent, only if we wish to. The choice remains in our hands.