Yes We Can !!

There is a war on terror. Agreed. There is fair ground for an immigration officer to frown upon a Muslim surname. Particularly so for an American immigration officer post 9/11. Sounds gross but agreed nonetheless. Then Shah Rukh Khan is detained as a result of these two reasons. Should we agree on such a situation too?

Now I am not a SRK fan but I certainly realise what SRK is. He is the biggest filmstar ever produced outside Hollywood. He has a humongous fan-base that is spread all over the world. He is called an Islamic icon these days besides an Indian superstar because he’s hugely popular all over the Muslim world whether it’s a Middle-Eastern country or Bangladesh. And that definitely doesn’t mean that Muslims love all Muslim filmstars because it has never happened with an Iranian or Indonesian filmstar.

Now that’s Shah Rukh Khan and a good-hearted, responsible American immigration officer decides to interrogate him further after the primary interrogation, doesn’t let him use his cell phone for a while and asks him stupid questions. All in the name of War Against Terror.

Justifications have been put forward, one by our very own Salman Khan, who never looked a sensible man in any of the characters he portrayed in films. Sallu says, it’s all good. He praises the Americans for being so strict and he also concludes that it’s only because of such sincere attitude, another 9/11 hasn’t happened.

There’s another one put forward by the Americans. They say that India has a ‘VIP culture’. If a businessman from Delhi is asked a few questions by an immigration officer, he behaves as if he’s an important person and doesn’t deserve this.

Both points are valid. Sallu for once has spoken sense.

Now let’s once again try and consider the incident that led to this article in view of these justifications. It still doesn’t make sense.

Now let’s try and apply logic. An immigration officer, whether American, Austrian or otherwise has not heard of Shah Rukh Khan. Okay, his GK is poor. We haven’t heard of all the Mexican superstars either. Mexico has a disadvantage though. We in India have the numbers anyway, add to that a substantial number of non-Indian Muslims and you know that no Mexican star could ever be half as popular as SRK. Nonetheless. When a man, Shah Rukh Khan in this case, discloses his identity and reportedly a colleague of this officer swears by him and he still doesn’t realise that he’s making a mistake that would lead to an international debate, it clearly shows that he is an asshole.

Now there is no dearth of assholes in America who think that the Sun revolves around the US of A. How could I write that! AMERICANS DON’T THINK. They know that the sun revolves around the USA, the moment they step outta their country, it’s a jungle where half-naked human-like creatures dance around the fire and perform black magic and wherever they land in India, the moment they look up, there is The Taj.

Wikipedia reveals another fact. Americans don’t even read the American magazines as according to Newsweek, Shah Rukh was the 41st most powerful man in the world in 2008 and four years prior to it, Time magazine had named him among the 20 under-40 achievers of Asia.

Instead of chanting Yes We Can hysterically like a bunch of imbeciles, Americans could do well to educate their lot.