A shout out to those, who think feminism is just another grain of sand soring the eye

My first ever visit to India after evolving into 'Ushasi Sinha Vasu Mallik'! The day also isn't far behind when I can see my near and dear ones more satisfactorily, breaking the barrier of a virtual window. This is after a full circle of three hundred and ninety three days and the experience can't be more exquisite while I take on my first flight with Emirates airline. The world looks more beautiful but less enticing without the man of the house next to me, gazing at a sublime and overcast sky that guides our aero pathway to Milan, Italy! An hour's halt at Milan, a quick tete-a-tete with a Hispanic co passenger in a broken amalgamation of English and some derivative of Espanola, everything goes smooth leading to a comfortable five hour's travel to Dubai. Now that I'm finally onboard for my flight to the city of joy Kolkata, it gives a strange sense of ecstasy and content within my dignity and uncompromising femininity, to pen down few candid words from the innermost corner of my heart - with the iPad open on my lap, every sip of that freshly brewing green tea tastes richer, leaving me feel wiser and blessed as ever.

This shall definitely be my first as well as last transit via Dubai. And the factors contributing to this deliberate decision are so very quintessentially Ushasi - the maiden then, the child wife now. One thing remains stable, unchanged, resolute, perhaps slightly more palpable than before - an unflinching faith in myself, and the unwavering zeal to take charge, voice for what feels principally right to me, regardless of how much pain and effort it takes to establish the right and vanquish the wrong.

The security staff sends me back thrice to take off three different items at the security check gate - my boots, my scarf, and my wedding bangle respectively - all of which he could have asked me to remove at one go and assemble in the tray for scanning. The United States, a country that fundamentally believes in ripping even a celebrity off his belt and shoes for security and safety purposes, normally doesn't adhere by rules such as asking passengers to remove their wedding rings and other religious ornaments unless they are indicative of some illegal trading or might turn out to be suspiciously and potentially threatening. This gentleman (if I should be gentle enough to address him so) has an inadmissibly churlish and aggressive body language from the very beginning and I don't know what pleasure he is relishing by making me go through the unnecessary trouble of returning continually and managing to grab the tray interminably, while almost choking in a wild stampede of a heavily crowded queue that seems to have the guests in more hurry than anyone else across the globe! They were probably like a herd of impatient sheep, each of them bleating in a nugatory effort to head quicker than the other for a magical flight to another destination. In addition, the rush makes them forget the basic generosity and courtesy of bearing with what is going on with another passenger before their eyes - a single girl, traveling alone with two hand baggage - one of the two considerably hefty, consisting of two single malt whisky bottles, a laptop, a plush puppy and few more goodies for her loved ones which she can't afford to carry in the check-in luggage owing to their fragile nature. Interestingly, there are other women too, whose jingling bangles and many more adornments camouflaged under the floor-length veiled garment is cleared to pass at the same point of safety check without a hint of hassle, but I am asked point blank to be free of my 'loha' ( wedding bangle on my left wrist) possibly due to some precisely unspecified and assumable reason. The security personnel, a dusky and lanky guy in his late thirties - hatched-faced, dark eyed, bearded, who considers himself to be the 'police' and the sole keeper of all the safety rules and regulations of the entire Saudi Arabia, unhesitatingly rolls his eyes at me in quite a nasty fashion and yells - 'Go!! go back! Take this off! (The bangle)

In a frenzied disbelief, my astuteness revolts through the veins instantly. According to the limited knowledge of the safety procedures that I am gifted with, there isn't any least convincing element in what he is trying to drive me at. There's supposed to be a beeping noise at the entry of any metallic device or object that in case is attached to your body, you are immediately told to put the same down for scanning, which in my case, makes no noise or doesn't flash any clearly visible blink in the machine either. Sometimes these personal belongings might very well be your anklets or even belts. I remember a couple of times the same was stringently followed at the Delhi airport several years back. Those days I used to be wearing a silver studded waist chain which habitually and subtly peeped out of my low rise denims on and off and it was extra special as was gifted to me by my mom during my early teens. I never took it off as it looked irresistibly sexy and also helped me ensure my waist was within its 26" width limit. Voila!

Every time I crossed the security check point, it beeped and I was blatantly asked by a female staff to pull my top up so that she could check me way too thoroughly, all the way down my navel where she could actually reach the metal chain and rotate her X-Ray wand all over. All this is more than acceptable. In an era of undue atrocity and religious fanaticism, the remorseless masterminds more often than not resort to the most devious ways in pursuit of sating their thirst for innocent blood. The 9/11 terrorist attack is the ultimate instance of concealed weapons that had helped the nihilists strategically hijack the carrier at the height of 50,000 feet above the ground level and where, survival stands hardly a chance. The emergency escape route is far from the gateway to your sweetest nest, nevertheless, the heaven's door might be wide open to greet you royally. Yikes! 

This janabe-ali welcomes all international passengers who touch down upon his home ground with few minimal expectation that they'll be treated with adequate respect, if not exceptional warmth and striking gestures, and he most certainly nurtures several dyed-in-the-wool discriminative tendencies, and so doesn't mind allowing the ladies in black to proceed but this lady in her khaki tee and faded blue skinny jeans is held in custody for not yielding to his precariously male chauvinistic command and idiosyncratic demands which refuses any explanation! Since this unfortunate lone traveler takes pride in her marital signs and perceives that the withdrawal of any of these must come with some reasoning and justification, she is considered as arrogant, not remotely 'intolerant' and of course a rebel in all forms for protecting her customs and religious sentiment that are a part and parcel of her existence.

"I'm afraid, I wouldn't be able to take of my wedding bangle. It holds a religious significance for me." - I declare.

"You can't take off your wedding bangle? No problem. Just go back. You are not allowed to travel." - And he gives me that vulture's stare with total disapproval of the clarification I ask him for.
"You can't speak to a guest like that! Your X-Ray machine hasn't even beeped. Why are you troubling me for something which is no way going to make your task difficult of double checking on the safety measures? Is any lady officer there??" - I retort.

"Listen lady, if you do not do what I'm asking you to do, I'll take away your passport and you can not fly!" - He screams at his bestial  best and snatches the passport away from my hand.

"Now you know what I can do to you right?" - He chuckles in his merciless vengeance mocking at my helpless, volatile state which only makes me shudder at the thought of what else is in store. What if I miss my flight to Kolkata? What if I am not able to reach the husband and the family?

Losing hope is not the solution and standing up against every wrong that attempts to bog one down can be ruled out itself by the virtue of one's conviction, judgmental prowess, unruffled composure and unabashed actions. There might be other girls too, just like me, who take up such risks and fight such a battle everyday travelling from one corner of the world to another and there is nobody to the rescue of these over protected and cherished daughters, sisters, wives and mothers of the family. Unlike many other times in the past, I feel I am going weak in my knees, jostle inside and out to regroup myself, and I mutter within - ''I'll sail through. Silently, singlehandedly but srongly. I know, courage and confidence is all that I have to bank upon and it's not easy. However, I can not let perseverance abandon me in this crisis while the faces of my affectionate family members keep coming into my sight.

I turn back, walk a couple of steps behind, as loud as a prying fox he is, I contrarily maintain my calm and my pitch substantially low, though loud enough to pierce through the ears of my targeted listener - "The next time you speak to a lady, utter words of respect in a tone that is professional and acceptable. I need my passport back! Do not try to harass me. It's not about the security check, but your behavioral manners." - I insist.

I am made to sit for approximately forty five minutes after claiming the passport and in the meantime not a single service personnel belonging to the same team and ethnicity assists me with the password of the wifi which can help me connect to the worried consort. Furthermore, I am not permitted to step out to the cafe area to refresh myself. In my understanding, I am being tested, tried and watched over until I reach my breaking point, which, for the dauchebag is like waiting for godot and in succession, is thwarting his plans. I, being a strong devotee of Bajrangi bhai jaan, (not the one who swoons us over his screen presence, but the one that is omnipresent, sturdy and divinely) - smile within myself as I see another gentleman who happens to be our janabe-ali's supervisor, approaches me with the passport in his hands. He apologizes for the misbehavior, harassment as well as the delay, and in return receives few words of advice suggesting an in depth training in people skills and passenger handling for his subordinates and seniors. I thank him and walk down to gate number C18 and in a blink my international roaming is resumed connecting me to the love of my life.

The truth is, that we talk about political dogmatism, we argue over the news of award return, there is a tempest in the teapot almost every morning over beef eating, or the prosecution of a criminal who has damaged millions of lives almost a decade ago. But no one talks about how the temperament of the society at large has not yet changed over the years in view of the attitude towards women across the globe. At least thirty five to fifty percent female air travelers report of being groped and fondled during random body search at the airports every day. And if deprived of the least scope of sexual harassment, one may even have to undergo an unexpected lashing of verbal abuse. And Dubai airport is no exception. Not to forget, there was not even one female security officer to check me physically, but janabe-ali standing tall and upright. The darkest images of such malevolent realities prevail across the whole of middle east. There are countries that still has its 'Muttawah' (religious police) roaming around the streets to make a record of maximum arrests for witnessing an unmarried man and woman having a conversation - be it a casual and pleasant chit chat, or some hint of euphemism. It was not too long back when one such country made news of an employer chopping off the arm of an Indian domestic help for simply resisting sexual harassment. If one may put up a debate - How do we, as a civilization, as the citizens of a first world country, reconcile with a culture that continues to openly perceive women with contempt and brutally pound them with condescension? How do we, pervasively sit still for all those times when a female body and her emotions are mauled in an orgy of zealotry? How do we as a self-proclaimed educated specie, the moderately enlightened mankind make peace with our ill-fated brothers dying in suicide bombings who have spent more than half of their lives looking down upon their women for desiring to create their own identity beyond those black flowing nondescript robes? How do we help them outgrow such malignant dispositions that swears by the perseverance of their female counterpart's 'abru' (honor) at the cost of mutilating them, dispossessing them of their individual rights and fredom of expression? Change is quite possible to show up when we learn to redefine Feminism as a universal phenomena, and not just as a cliché blowing too many grains of sand in the eye.  

Audrey - The Teeny-Tiny Miracle

She is a teeny-tiny miracle, a wingless angel fluttering on earth and above,

She capers around in her frilly tutu and butterfly barrettes, searching for love.

Like an untainted dew on an opulent David Austin rose of an autumn morning,

She is fascinated with life, and her smile an infectiously luminous thing.

She can not make sense of the impairments that fate lobs at her,

Those tiny veins perforated, soon her vision begins to blur.

 Her twinkling eyes, terrified of the vastness of the sky,

Her pallor and elfin limbs, often brings her down to ashes from the high.

She hums the most mellifluous carol, and celebrates every season,

Momy says hope is on its way, then why is she distraught over some silly reason?

It rains and Audrey dances like a daisy, jaunty and ceaseless,

Sometimes like a piece of sun, she burns up, feeble and hapless.

Bo the Teddy Bear is in low spirits and looks through the window,

Audrey's Zumba this Sunday, hasn't reached its crescendo!

Once she bounces back, and hears her heart pounding no more,

Leaning on the balcony railing, she will hitch her wagon to a starlit shore.

I wish to see her standing there, remembering Alex, and feeling like the moon,

With a magical potion of her exquisite dimple, our princess shall conquer the world soon.

Audrey, you are a special child with gifted talents and a soul so pure,

The entire universe in its uttermost sanctity shall pray for your cure.

 My ode to all those little hearts like Alex who has recently lost his battle with Diamond Blackfan Anemia and also dedicated to my favorite - the irresistibly pretty, exuberant and incredibly brave fighter - Audrey. DBA is a rare blood disorder that causes low Erythrocyte (Red Blood Cell) without fundamentally affecting other blood components like the platelets and the Leukocyte or White Blood Cells. It may also be associated with birth defects or abnormal features. Usually during infancy; 90% have severe anemia for the first year of life. A significant number of cases go into instant remission and survival up till adulthood can be expected in a lot of cases. Although with proper care and treatment, people with DBA can live healthy lives and enjoy most of the normal day-to-day activities, if all medication fails, blood transfusion is the only option. Regular blood transfusions mostly lead to problems of iron overload. Bone marrow transplantation is the only definitive treatment but it is not always successful. Complications of treatment and incidence of Cancer may also reduce one's life expectancy. DBA education is the need of the hour as well as a handful of kindness that might help us spread its awareness, thus save another life, another bundle of joy. 

 

When Ekakanya ripens into Sati - What If Our Mother Goddess Could Speak

In next few hours from now, Kolkata : the city of joy will be all lit up, the beats of the drum will allure everyone with the chants of Durga Durgati Nashini Shlokas and whoa, that intoxicating aroma of incenses....

The essence of Durga Puja captures the very heart and soul of Bengal and its festivity - the emotional and cultural loyalty to plunge into one's love for life, the warmth and unbridled joy to get together, celebrate the brighter side of relationships, the pride in artistry and aesthetic penchant - none of this is just about religion and worshiping a mere clay idol. It is more than what meets the eye. It's about the cult of the goddess, that redefines empowerment and signifies 'nari shakti' in a universal sense. As the country gears up for the most opulent time of the year for our benevolent Mother Goddess, can we turn a blind eye to the trauma of a four-year old Delhi girl's blood-curdling sexual assault that has hit the headlines recently? Every time a brutal rape takes place in the heart of the national capital region or any surrounding site of crime, the nerve-wracking account of Nirbhaya's tragedy flashes back into the memory bank. 

Quite similar to the disturbing fate of Jyoti, who succumbed to her sufferings three years back owing to a barbaric sexual attack that occurred in a moving bus in the wee hours of the winter night in Delhi, this little girl too was brought up in a slum and her family is undergoing tremendous financial crisis to fund a series of medical treatments that are absolutely mandatory to help her recover from the current torments. She is just four year old, and was heinously raped and thereafter slashed with a blade and abandoned near the railway track last week. One wonders how her tiny body might have sustained those bruises from a gang of cold-blooded beasts. The child's intestines have possibly been damaged so much so that the Safdarjung hospital has been recorded to seek an emergency surgery for her. Researchers have revealed that India happens to be the hub for child trafficking, and nearly 40,000 children are abducted every year for child labor, beggary and sexual exploitation, out of which 11,000 go unreported, according to the findings of National Human Rights Commission of India.

  

What if Ma Durga could articulate her concern and respond to the prayers of her children? She perhaps wouldn't wish to indulge in spending lakhs on lavish mandap decor while someone else's home is dimmed to eternal gloom as their little baby shall never wake up to her cheerful smile once again. It's not only her body, but it's also her soul that has been abused and crippled forever. Those extravagant lights illuminating the grandest of pandals will fall short to drive away the darkness that has overcast her eyes those possibly used to sparkle with big dreams in them for a sound future. We may not be able to find the right spot to hide our faces in shame as we deck up in those ostentatious garments for the occasion, while the victim's diminutive body must have been ravished off her little dress. 

It is observed and believed in the ancient Indian scriptures of Devi Mahatmyam or Chandi, that the goddess occupies a small portion within every female living being on the planet. The sacredness of her chastity and virginal piousness is to be preserved and safeguarded as that also symbolizes the blessed womb that we all are born from. But the paradox lies in the hapless miseries of all the mothers of our nation, who are literally shaken to conceive a female child. That pound of flesh inside them is often destined to an early termination, or if brought on earth, is sooner or later bound to be subjugated to infanticide. In case the girl is fortunate enough to survive, she is raised to bear the burden of her share of price that she is forced to pay for being capable of menstruating, impregnating, and finally delivering another life. The unbreakable silence around this ugly truth scars every mother goddess inside each one of us, who, at some point in time of her life has been victimized of eve teasing, sexual harassment or molestation. She fails to immerse that lump of ignominy and despair into the hallowed water along with Durga Mata on Vijaya Dashami every year. As the deity departs for her voyage back to the Kailash in the secure folds of her benign husband, we still continue to be encumbered by a crude reality, that the majority of the female sex coming from various socio-religious backgrounds, at no juncture, are safe in the hands of their fellow men. They are not safe with their brothers, uncles, husbands, even fathers. They are neither safe within their own urban suites, nor those remote villages that claim to protect their as well as their family's honor at all times.

There are numerous incidents of children in India, noticeably young girls getting kidnapped mysteriously in the darkness of the night and sold in the market, for commercial sexual slavery. 

 Contrarily, there are still rituals of 'Kumari Puja' prevalent among some of the country's Hindus as well as Nepali Buddhists (for more than 2,300 years now), practiced to venerate the virtue of a young girl's chasteness, who hasn't yet reached her pubescence. The priests are meant to recite holy hymns and conjure up the deity in disguise of this rich silk embellished and bejeweled toddler. She pretty much stands for the embodiment of the 'Mahashakti' of Goddess Durga, and her other form of 'Bhaavini', (The beautiful woman), that is glorified as 'Devamata' (The Mother Goddess), garbed in the hue of vermillion as 'Paatalavati' (One who wears red-color attire). She is known for conquering the world with her 'Nitya' (Eternal) and 'Vaishnavi' (The invincible) aura. She also personifies the 'Mahishaasura Mardini' (Slayer of the bull-demon Mahishaasura), who ultimately diminishes the evil with her supremacy and shields the mortals from those vicious snarls and wrath of the demon. 'Mahodari' (One who has a huge belly which stores the universe) epitomizes that ministering angel in her, who holds her children closest to her existence as a raksha kawach from the satanic perils of the world, and is the most powerful avatar of Durga. Ironically, she is the same potential Divine energy, that manifests in the depiction of a 'Kumari' (The beautiful adolescent) who is later made to surrender as the weak and compliant 'Sati'. 

So, when a two and a half year old girl is raped in the Western Delhi suburbs, left unconscious and bleeding to death from her private parts, when a five year old is gang raped in a next door neighbor's house in East Delhi, and dumped to rot thereafter, we invariably lose some amount of blessing from an exorbitantly constructed effigy of our compassionate Maa Durga. Unless the vortex of salacious male deviance stops gripping us, until the day our honorable leaders of the society cease to believe that 'How is it a gang-rape if two people rape?' we hold no right to revere the Divinity that is incarnated of a mother figure. In our attempt to self-console by recompensing heftily for best idol competitions, night-long concerts and swanky celebrity appearances, we somewhat tend to also compromise with our morals, principles and basic humanity. Only if our Devi could talk, we would have known the degree of her dismay and resentment in a culture that can go broke in order to endow her with the most ornate and regal treatment during her annual visit, but simultaneously doesn't scruple to so mercilessly mutilate, castrate and at times disembowel the purity of its youngest natives.              

          

From a day in Ahmed's life to discussing Mars, a camera friendly PM and all the digitization.

As the rare super 'Blood Moon' decides to dominate the skies once again since 1982, I scamper out in the balcony with the man of the house to catch a glimpse of it. A much required breather from all the hype that is blown over the recent visit of our Indian Prime Minister to the United States, the lunar eclipse feels nothing less of a pearl of great price. 

 

And the news of actual liquid substance being possibly present on Mars is another addition to our thought provoking aspects pertaining to the heliocentric system. Mars is the second smallest planet in the entire solar system, after Mercury, and considered the fourth planet from the sun. Mars was named after the mythical Roman god of war and is often referred as the 'Red Planet' owing to the element of high iron oxide making it appear reddish on its surface. The controversy is, whether the scientific evidences are sufficient to indicate that Mars is up to snuff for agriculture or not.  Life would possibly have been a bowl of cherries if NASA could resolve some of the most crucial issues here on earth before declaring anything on the potentials of another planetoid in the cosmos.

Currently, there are 21000 villages in rural India, that is deprived of electricity. Availability of water supplied through pipelines is a distant dream, and women from every household can' t help but walk on their bare feet across miles after miles to procure a jar of water in the remote provinces of Rajasthan. What will exactly be the utility of wireless internet connectivity in such places? Yet we are talking about digitalizing India by 2019. 

I have been toiling under tremendous pressure for last few days to comprehend this new jargon crawling up and down the walls of my social media with all it pervasiveness - Digital India.

However, after a decent amount of brain wracking and research, I am now, in a position to decipher why my fellow humans are so acutely enthusiastic about changing their Facebook profile picture into a tricolored image. It's with Mark Zuckenberg changing his own Facebook display picture and updating the same in a pattern of triple hues, we Indians have been blindly following suit. This initiative by the particular website and its chairman and CEO is symbolic of showing support to the saffron brigade's gigantic leap into envisioning a digital India. Ever since Modi ji's raaj has come into existence, it has ushered us in a cleaner and more developed India. Sometimes the beti-bachao agenda, at times selfies and yogasanas - all of it has some way or the other turned up in favor of the suit boot ki sarkar that has succeeded in melting 19,000 hearts including Indian Americans and Indian nationals watching and listening to him in San Jose couple of evenings back. Whoop-de-doo! 

What bemuses me the most about this man is, ever since the independence of the country nearly 70 years ago, it is his singular and expansive leadership that has drastically brought forth India's cause in the forefront, to the United States in specific. After the temporary reforms in the economic arena, commenced under the Vajpayee rule of BJP era, Congress party could only manage to continue some of it half heartedly, which moved from a gradual decline to a permanent termination by 2009. Modi, on the other hand clearly represents India's global economic outreach as a necessity to battle poverty and rise in new technology and the business world. If nothing else, the Modi haters at least can't ignore the fact that criticizing his dictatorial ship will be somewhat anti-progressive too. The Indian Diaspora estimated over twenty million is well aware that calling him a mass murderer doesn't discredit his dramatic launching of strategies and that gushes in a large scale manner. In many ways, Gujrat has thus remained central to his politics in making India burgeon with various enterprises. 

However critical his oppositional political parties might appear about his fundamentals, they surely lacked that vision to take the state and country to such summits, despite they have had multiple opportunities in the past to do so. In an age of a politically illiterate and emotionally gullible mass, constructive things are easier said than done in the dictionaries of these political maestros. Therefore, the circulation of government services amongst citizens electronically, in a digital infrastructure may very well seem elusive and over ambitious. Would this renewal of age old India with an electronic brain serve as the powerhouse for economic growth and prosperity lashing out impoverishment and eradicating the perennial problem of unemployment from the heart of the nation? But then again, who wants to pull the country backwards? It is not entirely a bad day for science : his collaboration with world high-tech companies  such as Samsung, Ericsson, Media Tek, Opera Software, Nokia and Qualcomm, to introduce internet to the villages of India is praiseworthy. By means of stirring an unparalleled shift in the national face and policy, he has compelled us to look into and believe in his broader and long term perspectives highlighted through a greater nationalistic view which in due course of time needs to be kept at a close watch for the outcomes.

Post the tumult over a series of bans imposed on Indian democracy, the sense of personal freedom is in question and looks like getting strangulated all over. If beef and porn be removed from the Indian way of living, does that also not blur the line between religious taboo, moral policing  and absolute monocracy on the part of the government and our honorable leaders? There is so much of dubiousness and so many angles to this, no wonder a non-political person like me soon loses the (saffron) thread. Argh!  

Mentioning of religion, another hot potato doing rounds that baffles me even after the dust has settled a bit is the story of fourteen year old Ahmed Mohamed whose homemade clock at the Texas high school caused a national blowback few weeks ago. We hear of kids breaking some silly rule, and being reprimanded for disobeying the school authority. But what makes Ahmed's incident unique is the underlying factor of religious commotion. He was arrested on the charges of a possible sinister ulterior motive behind bringing something to school that was construed as a dangerous explosive to an overtly cautious administrator and the security department. The why and wherefore of the school and police suspecting Ahmed's invention of a bomb is still obscure and subjected to scrutiny. But what we can take as gospel is : a ninth grader's usage of the term 'invention' and 'creativity' would never be able to match the lengths to which the U.S patent office would perceive them and what threats these innovations or creations might adumbrate as well. There must be many other Muslim American kids who are faced with the challenge of being derided as Islamic fanatics within the four walls of the classroom. Ever since the 9/11 attack, the London bombings in 2005, the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, we can't help but be misguided by a constant paranoia about domestic Islamic extremism , and school safety to be precise. As much as the suspension and expulsion ruins a young life and the prospects of a future engineer, dispelling stereotypes and bigotry is also not as easy as a pie or an overnight miracle but a measured process.  

Another side of the story pinpoints the family's obvious capitalization on Ahmed's treatment. The consequences of his harassment has definitely blown the lid off the injustice piling up and severely born by Islamic children in America for more than a decade now. At the same time not every other wrongfully detained high schooler is charmed by the sympathy and support of the social media and ends up receiving accolades from the president and a lifetime offer - 'Want to bring it to the White House?' Hurrah! 

As is the custom, we get carried away by emotions and easily succumb to the gimmicks exercised on us politically, socially and some that hover around our religious sentiments. Talking about the unjust and inappropriate actions taken against Ahmed's playful innovativeness, can we erase the blood stains from the pages of history and the ugly truth masked in between the lines? Can we forget - that terrorism involved Muslim perpetrators began in the United States with the 1993 shootings at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, followed by the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City?  It has been established that discrimination towards Muslim Americans was prevalent even before the attacks on September 11, which may relate to Islam being frequently portrayed by the media as intrinsically intolerant and violent, nevertheless, post-September 11, 2001, the attacks by Muslim terrorists have irrefutably worsened the general public’s outlook towards mainstream Muslim Americans. The numbers tell a distressing tale. In October 2001, a survey revealed that 47 percent of Americans had a favorable view of Islam. By 2010, that number had reduced to 37 percent. And today, alarmingly, only 27 percent of Americans have an unbiased or a congenial attitude towards Muslim Americans. If the figures have to speak for itself, during the 9/11 tragedy, it was nineteen alleged highjackers alone who claimed lives of 2,996 people; barring them the rest of the two million Muslim population were absolutely innocent, peaceful and clueless about what catastrophe was awaiting. Who to put the blame on then? Meanwhile when you mull over this never ending universal turmoil, why not squeeze in a minute's good laugh over something light hearted? 



The husband being away for next three days on a business trip, my nights are surely longer than usual but certainly no less amusing. Thanks to the uninterrupted 'trendings'. To my utmost glee, I find during the recent Townhall discourse session at the Facebook headquarters in New York City, the Indian PM took his affinity for the lens to a hilarious level. The historic meet was well recorded on the camera until Mark unconsciously blocked the view of the photographers. Modi ji, who is quite an expert in posing away in glory, did not hesitate to hold Zuckenberg's arm like that of a guilty little monster's at the crèche and steer him to the side for going pee-pee without a notice. If we look at it with a grain of salt, it is actually better in fact relieving to have a Prime Minister who doesn't shy away from the camera and knows the art well to entice the crowd with his oratory skills, in comparison to someone who takes pleasure in scams, snoops on Netaji unflinchingly for giving up UNSC seat offers, conspires against contemporaries in pursuit of hunger for power and takes recourse to fallacious appeasement of safe ballots. Yowza! How's that?