So remember last week when I mentioned that Shah Rukh Khan was starring in My Name is Khan, a movie about a Muslim man detained by U.S. authorities on suspicion of terrorism? Turns out the truth isn’t that far from fiction.
Khan revealed he was held at Newark Airport yesterday for two hours by security.
“I was really being hassled, perhaps because of my name being Khan,” actor Shah Rukh Khan charged Saturday, a day after he was detained for two hours. “These guys wouldn’t let me through.” The 43-year-old “King of Bollywood” said he was waiting for his bags Friday when security pulled him aside after his name popped up on a computer screen. “I was really taken aback,” he told an Indian television station. “I did not want to say anything just in case they took everything wrong, because I am a little worried about Americans because they do have this issue when your name is Muslim.”
[Link.]
Another case of mistaken identity? Or just the usual profiling? When my family travels, they factor in an extra few hours because it’s inevitable that one of my brothers, cousins or uncles is going to be pulled to the side and questioned. So it’s not really surprising to hear that Bollywood stars aren’t immune from such treatment.
Better win that Oscar, SRK. Maybe it’ll get you through security faster.
There maybe two sides to this.. SRK is not a celebrity here. it is of course sad that he (or any other visitor) was even subjected to the additional questioning becuase of some stupid security guard’s paranoia. http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/onefortheroad/entry/don-t-make-a-big
My brown ass is offended. Oi America, don’t mess with our film stars, you can always strip search our defense minister or ex-president! Surprisingly, it was at Newark Airport, where almost half of the staff is Desi.
as i have argued elsewhere .. i think the man doth protest too much.
and seems there’s a fair bit of noise – about the name, about the intervention by indian embassy etc. to me, the black stuff in the lentils is that frequent travelers to the usa have a person’s background as part of their border profiles [there is a disconnect between land and air entry points as i’ve discovered in the past] but it is there. unless the guy was doped up on something or he had a blank reissued passport, he shouldnt have been stopped. and if he was stopped, a 2 hr delay at newark isnt a big deal. it’s a crowded airport. i think this was a cunning pubicity stunt.
maybe he should have left his noseprint in the biometric database. there’s no two like that.
Does it strike anyone that this might be a publicity stunt? It seems too well-timed to be true, no?
The same thing happened to me in 2002 when i was flying from sf to nairobi – apparently my name popped up on the no-fly list; they had to get fbi clearance before they let me through, it was a good 1 hour for that i think, during the time, the cops who showed up in a moment’s notice from various places cornered me and questioned about every detail in my passport, etc. how would i know a backpacking trip had to start that way, but i never had that experience later, as they may have taken my name out afterward, but the ‘random’ pullover for further security check continues, i just plan extra time for it, that’s all. This happens every day, btw, it becomes a publicity only when celebrities go through it.
@ Sadia:
When I first read this, that was my reaction exactly. What suspicious timing.
Out of curiosity Phillygrrl, do Pakistani Christians Anglicize their names, or do they stick with the Arabic/Hebrew originals (e.g. Yusef instead of Joseph)? I ask because I wonder if the TSA is even capable of religious profiling (putting aside the question if this should be done) correctly and if this is what your brothers are experiencing.
But it is interesting that SRK seems to think this is a uniquely American indignity. I am very concerned about economic/housing/law enforcement discrimination issues that impact middle class secular Indian Muslims (Asra Nomani whose equanimity is not in doubt even to a “soft Hindutvaadi” like me has written some good articles on this) and I have to say that he must be out of touch with the ground realities in India. He sounds alot like Mr. Bacchan taking umbrage at the depiction of Mumbai’s poverty in Slumdog
khoofi, It may not be a big deal for a random creepy Desi uncle who thinks he is cool, I am not saying you are..but just to give an example :). We are talking about King Khan, with his huge fan following, he is bound to have some ego.
does anyone really think he’s so stupid that he’d stage a publicity stunt based on the plot of his upcoming movie? unless of course he’s thinking everyone would think that’s so obviously stupid that it must therefore be true. petty smart. or maybe he thought the ensuing tawana brawley debate would itself guarantee him extra publicity. brilliant.
🙂 I’d smack you except it makes my jowls jiggle.
india has a culture that gives to privileges to VIPs, and so for sure, he hasn’t experienced any problems in india, but i don’t know whether that means he isn’t aware of it. he has every right to complain about what he went though, i don’t think he has to hail from nation of perfection to complain about a perceived injustice in the u.s. now, i don’t know all the details nor the inclination to investigate, but i am not sure whether all this amounts to what you call harassment. sure, he was delayed, the question is whether it was for the right reasons or not. if his celebrity status brings attention to the racial profiling experienced by thousands of people every day, i think that would be a good thing.
I don’t understand the hue and cry over this. He’s a pathetic excuse of an actor; I wish they’d detained him for ever and saved us all his pending “Superhits”. This twat is responsible for peddling Bollywood as representative of India. He misleads Indian youth with his outdated and tacky dance moves, the very moves that Ram, Kishan and Kumar will take with them to the UK, US, and Australia on their way there for “further studies” after completing Engineering in India. There, these very same Shah Rukh Khan moves they idolized will render them social misfits in every party and scar them for life. Oh, and how can I even begin to describe that hairstyle? That fucking Bouffant virtually castrates the majority of Indian youth that step outside India every year in search of an education and sexual freedom. Big hair like that will not get you game outside India, especially if you speak with an accent and dance like Khan. Khan is a very bad actor, an even worse role model and a pusher of Fairness Creams. He deserves anything bad that comes his way. Him, Amitabh Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan’s ridiculous Wig and even more ridiculous son, their peers, and all the shrill, dumb bimbos who call themselves Bollywood Actresses, should be locked in Guantanamo Bay and the keys thrown into the far end of the ocean. Talentless, pompous, bastrards; the lot of them.
NB: I did post the same comment over at Ultrabrown.
People I know seem to go both ways. So there are Josephs and Yusefs. But I don’t think it’s the names that’re being analyzed, just the mere presence of a six-foot plus brown man with facial hair gets the guards nervous.
Najeeb,
It was this that I was reacting to: “I was really taken aback,†he told an Indian television station. “I did not want to say anything just in case they took everything wrong, because I am a little worried about Americans because they do have this issue when your name is Muslim.â€
You are right, he is right to be ticked off and to critique the US. My point is that he seemed genuinely surprised, whereas a Muslim twenty-something engineer from Wipro coming over for a US client engagement would probably expect it
Most Bollywood actors are that dumb. But this has happened to people who are super smart and not given to attention seeking behavior (e.g. ex-President Kalam, Azim Premji I believe too)
Seems outlandish. But who knows.
louiecypher, well the surprise is clearly because he has been to the u.s several times and he didn’t have this problem before. plus a celebrity like him has a low level of tolerance..
celebrity are not, i think most people would (or should) have a low level of tolerance for this kind of behaviour.
somehow this topic of indiscriminate racial profiling at airports came up at work a few weeks ago, and one of my (white) colleagues said he had no problem with it if it helped security. i seriously considered cursing him out.
wow.
That is a very vicious self loathing rant, UMM. There are many who like SRK’s movies. I liked some (eg Dil se, Karan Arjun) and hated some, (eg Dev Das,DTPH) myself. If I feel a movie is likely going to be a dud, which is quite easy to judge from previews, trailers and word of mouth, I stay away. Easy-peasy, no heartburn. I believe the objective of the songs and dances and other stuff in Indian movies is to entertain Indian people, not to train them to pick up American girls/guys. If you (or anyone who was silly enough to think so) tried that and failed, my sympathies. Try something different like square dancing, or go to a place more receptive to Bollywood dancing. Also, about the hair- I think it is incredibly self absorbed to imagine that the Indian film industry, or Indians in general should style themselves to confirm to what is considered fashionable in the west. Take the mustache for example- where would be a true blue, son of the soil Mallu be w/o his mustache. Even I, a non Mallu had a (what was later dubbed by my English colleagues as a) porn star mustache when I first landed at Heathrow. But I changed. And there are many who still sport it, and are still quite well adjusted (and if you’d want to know, popular too). That is the point of going to a new society- you learn and adapt. About his acting, and about your opinion of Bollywood, your views are as valid as mine. I think he was cheesed off because Indians have a culture of respecting famous people, even bending rules for them. He couldn’t possibly imagine Brad Pitt receiving the same treatment at an Indian airport (most probably there would be elephants laden with gold and spices, Aarti at the airport lobby etc) though he did volunteer to personally frisk Ms Jolie on her next visit to India, a fairly obvious and continuing overcompensation for his alleged homosexual leanings. And the dude is famous.Very famous (as an illustration), just go to Madam Tussauds, and he is quite obviously their star fixture. Newsweek had him in their list of the 50 most influential people in the world in 2008 (the name just below him, ironically was of OBL…possible mix up here? hmmm…). No fan of SRK personally, I nevertheless find him more intelligent and articulate than a majority of his fellow actors As for the actual issue of detaining people and racial profiling, I sympathise a little with the authorities in that they have kept their country free from another terrorist attack, but these methods are more than annoying and alienating an increasing number of people both American and foreign. Surely, a country as advanced as the US could have devised something better by now. I for one, have exhausted 6 years of my 10 year visa, and feel no need to subject myself to such harassment, unless I have to travel there professionally.
Yeah, SRK is not a big thing in the US, but you know what would help in such situations? A thing called ‘Google.’ They do have internet in your airports don’t they?
Always good to see lots of pretentiousness on SepiaMutiny (along with pretty much pointless articles, written by the same people may I add)… oh and yes, Americans do fawn over celebrities, albeit in a different way… thus you have Perez Hilton etc… hell, you even fawn over foreign celebrities… Simon Cowell anyone?
I detest the guy’s acting myself (AND I don’t give a shit about his personality, his character or his personal life), but I’ve found through personal experience (to my surprise) that he is the most popular Indian actor even among non-Desis… that counts for something in my book.
Me and my brown buddies were profiled once, we were frisked and the whole car was searched. I think the police thought that we were from Middle-East. We were students and were happy when the police let us go without a speeding ticket (we were going at 76 mph while the speed limit was 55 mph).
Lupus Solitarius, your comment is dangerously close to being a personal attack on another commenter. Watch it. We now have a zero tolerance policy.
Abhi, I apologise if you feel I have indulged in a personal attack, but did you read the portions of UMM’s comment that I’ve quoted?
It’s not just brown pp with/without Muslim names in the US… the same thing happened to me in Delhi.
I’m a Singaporean (born and bred there), and when I arrived at the IGI airport in 2002, i was asked to step outside the immigration line, and was told that the plane was waiting to take me back to Singapore!
No one gave me any explanation, even when I asked. After some time spent in the company of people who had no idea what was happening, i asked to speak to their supervisor.
He wouldn’t show up, but someone went to his office and took out a massive ledger and started going through it to find my name. All of a sudden, after some more waiting, I was told I could leave. Again, no explanation.
The immigrationvaalon would never have dared to do something like this to a sooperstaar like rajinikanth. Mind it!
Yes, it was quite harsh, but unless I missed it he isn’t directing his comments toward another commenter but a well known celebrity. I would just ignore comments like that our or point out what is wrong with his statements and you can do so without being personal.
LOL. harmandir, my experience hasnt been as vivid as yours – but yea in a particularly hair raising incident [this was just after the mumbai attacks last year] i was at the business ends of multiple submachine guns myself in desh. i didnt shit for a week.
@Brown I’m sure there is no shortage of publicity stunts to promote movies, but this would have to either be a lie or involve government officials from the United States in the publicity stunt. Given that something like this is completely unsurprising – something similar happened to a friend of mine from the Balkans and he described how many people were going through the quesitoning/short-term detention process- and has been well documented for several years now. It’s widespread, even though we mainly only hear about it when it’s someone high profile. I mean, they have a ‘no-fly’ list and numerous other ways that are poorly conceived and implemented to the point where it is basically tantamount to profiling of dark-skinned people, Muslims, political activists, etc.. So whether or not it is a publicity stunt (doubtful), the underlying trend is real (not doubtful).
of course not. when thalaivar comes to the US, threat level goes to 0.
so this fair and handsome stuff doesn’t actually work?
Where I see the disconnect is.. shouldn’t he have been “flagged” when the visa was issued to him?
“the actor surmises that it was because of his last name”
I feel that SRK is making this up for extra publicity. the great movie PR machine of Bollywood/Mollywood is doing its job.
OTOH, when Kamal Hasan was stopped due to his last name being Hasan it was a serious case. SRK is not even mentioning the actual questions yet. [Rediff] This might have happened to SRK before too but this time around I think he is using it for publicity also..
Cat Stevens, who changed his name when he convert to Islam was denied entry to US at the airport. So what else is new ? It will take some degree of embarassement before they begin to expunge their list and/or do something different. Sad but true.
When thalaivar gets up in a plane, seat belt warnings automatically turn off.
I don’t think this SRK is making this up for publicity for the K Jo movie. It’s probably for the movie after that, “inspired” by Catch me if you can, called “My name is Con”.
well why do you feel that way? i ask that sincerely, because if he was making this up, don’t you think that the U.S. government agencies, the actual customs officials involved, the Indian embassy, some of the newspapers reporting it, or SOMEONE would have pointed out that he was making it up? The theory doesn’t add up, based on what I’ve seen so far.
)Okay, here you go.
That’s from BBC. So the government’s argument is – ‘we do this to all foreigners.’ Super.
when thalaivar gets up in a plane, the no smoking sign goes off and the attendant offers bidis to all.
Being the white American wife of an Indian born man…I can attest to this racial profiling. On our honeymoon we were pulled aside along with other brown people. Many of whom couldn
t speak english (visiting parents/inlaws in saris). And, the one business white guy who was let go promptly. The unlucky ones - including myself - were taking by armed guards (M16s at Miami airport) to a back room. There we each had a turn going into a large room surrounded by guards holding m16s in uniform. A large table was there with our luggage. Two people put on rubber gloves and went through our suitcase piece by piece. I wanted to cry and later did. My husband was unphased and said it was okay. Ill never forget that experience and will never forgive my government. Regardless Mr. Kahn should have never been humiliated like that. It is a very very humiliating experience…Mr. Kahn usually isn’t. Mr. Khan, on the other hand…
thalaivar joins the mile-high club even before the plane takes off.
I see now, I thought you were talking about the Puraatchi Thailavar (aka Dr. JJ) and was confused. When she stands up the plane experiences turbulence and the seatbelt signs go on. And there’s no way she’s fitting in the bathroom to join the Mile High Club, unless her
victimlover is Little SuperstarI am surprised at how much attention this story is getting; it’s been all over the BBC.
could there be a more obvious publicity stunt for his upcoming movie?
This is very sad and disturbing what happened to “Shah Rukh Khan†at A Newark airport. Almost living in this country for three decades, all my children were born & raising in this country. It is still upset me very much when these ignorant people try to treat you as an outsider because of your complexion, and now because of your Muslim name. At least we have learned some manner from our parents, schools, neighbors and societies, how about these ignorant people? Shame you all, who are ignorant or pretend to be one.
SRK was detained for 66 minutes and asked questions….oooohhhhhh how scary!!! This is ridiculous and most likely a publicity stunt. And Priyanka Chopra’s twitter message “Shocking,disturbing n downright disgraceful.Its such behavior that fuels hatred n racism.SRK’s a world figure for Gods sake.GET REAL!!” Um okay….His name matches a wanted persons name, he’s asked questions for an hour and let go. How does the fuel hatred? The airport ppl are just doing their job. You can expect all of them to watch Hindi movies even if Ms. Chopra declares him to be a “world figure.”
I am disappointed, appalled and scared (yes, scared) by the number of comments on the TOI blog along the line of UberMetroMallu’s comment above and worse. The themes of the TOI comments are overwhelmingly: 1) this is justified; 2) SRK’s ego needs a reality check and therefore, gratitude that someone else has succeeded in bringing SRK to his knees; 3) let’s learn from America how to do this security-check thing right; a little inconvenience has been blown out of proportion, etc.
I wonder how many of these gung-ho apologists have actually experienced receiving negative and demeaning treatment by people in power, specifically, by border officials and bureacrats, who have the discretion to treat the general population whichever way they see fit in a given moment. I have traveled for 20 years on an Indian passport, lived in 5 different countries, and have dealt with visa and immigration bureacracy in two different countries. If the experience of celebrities do not succeed in highlighting the unnecessary humiliation helpless travelers/emigres (whether brown, black or white) face in the destination country, what else will?
I want to ask the TOI blogger and his commenters this question: Will they be so casually dismissive of the incident if it had happened to that other (egotist) celebrity and India’s original darling, Amitabh Bachchan? But since i don’t want to go to TOI site again, I’ll pose the question here. What if there was no upcoming movie, ‘My Name is Khan’? And what if it was one of the Bachchans? Will there be a true outrage and not this confused (misguided, in my opinion) attempt at leveling-the-mistreatment-factor for all, including our over-worshipped celebrities?
I thought UberMetroMallu’s comments were supposed to be funny – i don’t know him, but i wouldn’t think anyone would believe that SRK should be sent to Gitmo. but who knows..
To Malathi, Many of the TOI readers are plain sick of SRK’s egoism in thinking that he is above the law. Even Senator Ted Kennedy was prevented boarding at Boston Logan a few times, when his name popped up on a watch list. If it can happen to a powerful Senator who is far more famous in the US that “King Khan” then Shah Rukh should just shut up and realize that US CBP is not going give him a red carpet. They have rules to follow and are not going to bend it because of an egoistic foreign actor.
Malathi, this has happened to Indian celebrities in the past. Aamir Khan was stripped searched in 2002 and he came out saying he didnt mind and he understood that it was part of the security process.
According to US officials, SRK wasn’t detained and he wasn’t even questioned for 2 hours as he is claiming. He was questioned for under an hour because his luggage was missing and they could not inspect it. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/khan-not-singled-out-because-of-his-name-us/502596/1 If this is true, and this is a publicity stunt, SRK and Karan Johar should be ashamed. Playing with politics and people’s sensitivities towards mistreatment/racism just so you can sell some tickets to a movie doesn’t fly in my book.
daal mai kuch kala hai. publicity stunt is my gut reaction.
Who cares about one celeb being pissed off but there are no terrorist attacks here after 9/11. In India there were 7 major attacks just in Mumbai after 2001 (Killing at least 250 people). Once I have been taken into a separate room and searched in Bangkok, but does that really matter apart from a 30 minutes of nuisance? I love this country.