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Obama, invite SRK for beer: Shekhar |
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Obama, invite SRK for beer: Shekhar |
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Views: 1951
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Rating:
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#1
08-17-2009, 05:54 AM
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Obama, invite SRK for beer: Shekhar
Shekhar Kapur slams Ambika Soni for comments on
Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Shekhar Kapur has criticised Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni's remarks to give a 'tit-for-tat' treatment to the Americans after Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan was detained at a US airport for two hours. Giving the example of former president A.P.J. Kalam, who was also frisked in April at the Indira International Airport here as he was boarding a flight of US carrier Continental Airlines, Kapur wrote on his blog: "I believe what happened to Shah Rukh was a huge blunder, but what happened to our Abdul Kalam was far, far worse. It happened on Indian soil." "But I admired the calmness with which Abdul Kalam dealt with the issue himself and displayed so much humility. I expect Shah Rukh to do the same as I am sure he will. Only he can defuse the situation," Kapur posted on his blog www.webnsn.com Sunday. "Unlike our Cabinet Minister Ambica Soni, who said we should respond with a 'tit for tat'. What are you going to do, Ms Soni? Interrogate every American citizen arriving at our shores for an hour and a half? Or wait for Brad Pitt to arrive here? Cabinet ministers need to make more considered statements," he wrote. Shah Rukh was on his way to Chicago to attend a function to mark India's Independence Day and was detained for two hours at the Newark airport after US immigration officials spotted the 'Khan' in his name. Reacting to it, Soni had said: "I have always felt - even when I was frisked there (the US) - that the way they frisk us we should do the same for them here." Kapoor says to make up, US President Obama should invite Shah Rukh Khan for dinner. "What happened to Shah Rukh is a minor incident which we should protest about, yes. Ensure that this doesn't happen to an Indian public figure like him again and move on," Kapoor said. "And President Obama, adept as he is diplomatically and politically, should invite Shah Rukh to a family dinner over beer and (view) one of his Bollywood films," he added. 
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#2
08-17-2009, 05:55 AM
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Zayed Khan: “Of course we Khans go through this kind of humiliation all the time. I’ve gone through it, Salman has gone through it.
There have been times when I’ve been with 17 people in a team on or for a shooting in the US. Out of these only one gets detained on the airport while the others get cleared in no time at all. Guess who invariably gets detained? And some Caucasian bully who does these checkings by the book and who thinks all Khans are terrorists will tell you it’s a random check. Tell me, how can there be random checks on 5 US airports one after another and in all of them only yours truly gets detained for additional checking? I think there’s a big difference between being secure and being ignorant. I think American investigation agencies need to take a close look at the way they treat a certain community of people. How uncool is to humiliate your guests?? We in our family have stopped going to the US because of these, ha ha, random checks on the airport. We don’t go to the US for , only for work and to meet family and close friends. The Americans must realize they’re losing out on a lot of goodwill. They first insulted our former president Abdul Kalam. And now Shah Rukh. Humiliation of Indians anywhere is unacceptable. Nothing has been done about racist attacks on Indian students in . I see no difference between what’s done in Australia and in the US to Indians. Iqbal Khan (tv actor): “Such attacks on Khans is nothing new. These things happen at American airports. It is time for all Muslims in the world to let everyone know Islam means believing in God and the Almighty and in peace ... ..It’s happened to me. Once I was to go to the US for a show. I was the only one who didn’t get a visa. And I was the only Muslim. However recently I applied again and I got a 10-year multiple visa. Shabina Khan (dress designer): “I really dunno what happened with Shah Rukh in the US. But I definitely get into issues at the airport thanks to my surname. It’s annoying. I’m now on my way to the same show where SRK was detained and harassed. I hope I don’t get into any hassles. It’s scary.” Kabir Khan (director): “I was accompanying my wife in the US along with the Morani Brothers. It was a flight from LA to Washington just 15 days after 9/11. So the fear and parnaoia were not totally unjustified. We were waiting for the to take off talking to each other in Hindi when some passengers complained that we were talking in a ‘strange’ language. Within no time two burly FBI agents came on board and took me and my co-passengers to the front of the plane. When they got to know my name they questioned me for more than two hours, googled my name for terrorist links and then finally allowed me to fly.They asked me if I had been to Pakistan. I told them no. If I had told them I had been to Afganistan they’d have freaked out. Two other passengers on board refused to fly with us. So they were asked to de-board, the logic being that if my name was cleared by no means could I be prevented from traveling. So you see post-9/11 persecution comes with its inbuilt safety measures. But I honestly think a part of the global fear is justified. We can’t blame people for being paranoid after what has happened.” Irrfan Khan: “More than the physical torture it’s the wounds of humiliation that never heal after you undergo such a horrific experience. It happened to me on two occasions. I was detained in New York and Los Angeles airport for secondary interrogation. I was outraged. I was told to quietly come into a room for questioning and identification verification. I wasn’t allowed to talk. When I tried to ask why I was being treated this way I was told to keep quiet. I wasn’t allowed to use my phone, even to inform the people who had come to receive me at the airport. They said, ‘No, you just sit down.’ All because my name was Irrfan Khan. The authorities did their job like computers, not caring how it affected the individual. You can’t argue back or rationalize. America is a country of superior, sophisticated knowledge. Surely they can tell the difference between a terrorist and an innocent. On a second occasion this time in New York, when I was detained I blew my top. I told this big Black American guy, ‘Please clear the confusion about my identity once and for all. Or don’t provide me with a visa. I don’t want to come back to the US’ The guy wanted to know if it was a threat. I was taken aback. Mira Nair had to intervene. She advised me to never counter-question them. I wasn’t allowed to even get up from my chair. This is the free spirit of America. This 90-minute detention changed me completely. Just the thought of being held froze my blood. Can you imagine what a 90-day detention can do to an innocent man thrown into jail?” Dilip Kumar (Yusuf Khan): “After hearing these atrocious accounts who wants to to such a stupid place when our beautiful India offers Kashmir’s jannat and Kerala’s luminous glory? God forbid if we have to go to such a country.” Eijaaz Khan (tv actor): “I’ve gone through similar experiences a couple of times in the US. While all my friends breezed through immigration I was questioned and had to give the address I was staying at, and for how long. My whereabouts were even checked by them later. This was in February after 9/11. I guess this kind of treatment is to be expected by us Khans. We’ve to take it in our stride.”
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#3
08-17-2009, 05:58 AM
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Shah Rukh "is the sun among stars in the bright Bollywood Galaxy," says spiritual guru Deepak Chopra's son Gotham Chopra, "Yeah, the same guy
Gotham Chopra blogged about the time his non-Indian wife and he met the My Name is Khan star. As people who are used to bumping into stars, they considered themselves quite immune to being star-struck. But there was this one time that they weren't so immune. "Not Brad Pitt, not George Clooney, not Tom Cruise, Denzel, Bruce Wayne, Gladiator, or any of the other usual suspects. No we're talking the BIGGEST in the world ladies and gents, Bollywood sensation SHAH RUKH KHAN." Gotham narrates, "My wife Candice who is not Indian has watched countless Shah Rukh Bollywood movies with my two nieces. ...Anyway, so Candice and I are in to attend a good friend's wedding. Shah Rukh - who I had met casually a few times before - was in attendance at the party, drawing a huge crowd of admirers as expected. Still, at one point, Candice, myself, and Shah Rukh find ourselves face to face. I shook his hand and reminded him that we had met before once or twice. "'Of course,' he nodded and smiled, 'it's nice to see you again.' He turned to Candice. 'But madam,' he bowed to her and took her hand, 'it's a true privilage to meet you.' He bent down on his knee and kissed her palm. "Like I said, her knees buckeled and her cheeks flushed red. She giggled like a school girl and sheepishly looked away. The moment passed as another admirer pulled Shah Rukh's attention away. Candice would gush over it for weeks.... Back to the New Jersey incident, Gotham writes, "This is no joke people. Shah Rukh Khan is the biggest movie star in India, a country of 1.3 billion people, thereby making him the biggest movie star in the world. I'm struggling to find a comparable here in the US. No offense toor Matt Damon or Pitt, Cruise, Clooney, Angelina or whomever else you can think of, but they all pale in comparison. Maybe Michael Jackson, God rest his soul, or Madonna are vaguely comparable. Maybe." "But here's the thing. It's not just American customs agents being provincial, it's the fact that I would guess that in India alone, there are several million Khans. I'm not joking. Khan is one of the most common Muslim names and India is not even an Islamic country. "Ghengis Khan," anyone? Khan is like Jones or Smith. This is how our security works in the US? This is how we are catching terrorists? Are you kidding me?" The detention was shameful, he states, "A few weeks ago, a big to-do was made about African American Hardvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. getting arrested outside of his own house in Suburban, Massachusetts. Now this. Racial profiling in America, either subtley as it appears to have happened with Gates in Mass (my hometown) or by the book as it appears to have happened in NJ is shameful. It's based on ignorance and it actually perpetuates the same sort of hostility it aims to undo." He adds, "I'm not going to get all crazy about this and blow it out of proportion, though I do think it's a big deal and could see it blowing up if Indians in India get galvanized. The point is that despite all of our social networking and our flattening of the world and our East-West fusion culture and the fact that people in Milwaukee do yoga , we're still pretty provincial here in the good ol' US of A and there is an implict danger to it." Gotham concludes, "Trust me on this one, Shah Rukh Khan is no terrorist. That's not my wife's type."
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