My name is Khan and I'm not a terrorist!

I stole the title of my blog from a popular 2010 Bollywood film which is so relevant in the current environment that we live in. It's controversial to be a Muslim today or even have a name that sounds like one. A Jamie is treated like a human being, but God save you if you are a Jamal. That name will raise high-security alerts. The sirens will go off. Folks dressed in uniform will surround you, point their guns and ask you to raise up your hands. No, not to whip the nae-nae, but to do a comprehensive body cavity search that you didn’t ask for. 

So many things happened over the last few months. The clock boy Ahmed Mohamed was falsely crucified for allegedly carrying a clock bomb to school, when in fact all he did was created an innovative handmade clock. Creativity is mistaken for terrorism! Why? Because his name was Ahmed! So many innocent doctors and civilians were killed when an aerial bomb was shot at a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan…sadly mistaken as terrorists.  So many normal folks just casually doing their normal chores got killed by insane shooters. Don’t ask me which gun shooting incident I'm talking about because there have been more than 350 mass shooting incidents in the United States this year. If you have guns on sale in the same stores that sell fruits and vegetables, what else is bound to happen?

The most horrifying story was when very recently the Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump called for barring all Muslims from entering the United States. Also saying, if he becomes president, he would consider requiring Muslim-Americans to register with a government database. That’s Islamophobia at its worst. Sure the man is known for making crazy statements about people and especially the minority community. He almost built a virtual wall all across the Mexican border. He called his presidential opponents' maniacs. And now he crosses all limits of bigotry by calling for a carpet ban on Muslims, which also includes Muslim-American citizens…which is just insane. But surprisingly the more outlandish Trump gets, the higher his popularity ratings go. Makes me wonder…who are these folks who religiously follow and support him? 

With all that bloody news that flooded our world, one good news came out from Canada. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcomed thousands of refugees by personally visiting the airport to receive them. Looking at Trudeau’s gesture, I’ve already started taking lessons in Canadian politics. Yeah, I now know that Canada has a Parliamentary system like Britain, unlike America’s Congressional system. That’s my first lesson. 

Well, the story that took the universe by storm and that almost zeroed down on all the heartbreaking news was the man Steve Harvey’s awesome-possum hosting of the 2015 Miss Universe contest. Mistakenly crowning Miss Colombia instead of Miss Philippines with the Miss Universe title may be one of the craziest mistake ever done on live television. But it was one of my favorite things that happened. It looked like comedy to me. But the whole world panicked about it. The whole world criticized Harvey for a mistake that actually didn’t need that much attention that it got. No one died. No one was injured. But everyone, from a student, businessman, worker, employee, celebrity, millionaire, billionaire, politician, you and me, criticized Harvey for not doing that one job right. Only if the world panicked and went helter-skelter the same way when 42 people including Doctors Without Borders were mistakenly killed at a hospital in Afghanistan. And when so many civilians become victims of senseless wars across the world.

PostScript
It’s that time of the year when we make a snowman and wrap ourselves in multiple layers of clothes to beat the cold. But this Christmas, it’s colder in Bombay than it is in the Washington, D.C. area. It's 21 degrees C in DC right now, so we are making a snowman out of mud and walking around semi-nude. Don’t know whether it’s climate change, global warming or the El Nino effect. All I know is I love the damn weather and wish it’s going to be like that the whole winter. Happy Holidays and have a great New Year Y'all! And yeah, Merry Easter, Steve Harvey! 

It’s going to be 2016...How time flies!