The cribber 'Javed Akhtar'

I have had great respect for this prolific poet cum lyricist. He is a brilliant muslim and epitome of boldness and sometimes also of good thought. But I was surprised at his rather parochial attitude towards Shahrukh's so called 'detention' at one of the lesser known airports in the state of New York. He was--not to mince words--stupid on the topic as I heard him filibustering.

Here is the thing: While Javed clearly had the 'elite' argument first, he cleverly shifted his argument toward 'immediacy of search' argument. Expanding on this: Javed said in his first few liens that Shahruk should not have been detained because of his superstar status because (please read'because' in conjunction) to have him known would have been an easy task, just a click of button away for the security professional. Point fine taken. But over his penultimate lines, he shifts (because there was a realization that he had bickered more for 'VVIP' treatment for elite, known, famous Indian VVIPs) so much so as to call the whole matter a simple element of 'poor web search.'

Let me be the security guy who undertook the search or frisk: I checked at the computer who Shahrukh is. I can't go by what is written on the wiki pages or other articles by media. Does it in any way mean that I should discontinue my further interrogation because I had the initial doubt for him. Let me even drag 'Khan' into this for which I would say that, very unfortunately, we have to admit that there is a instinctive bias against Muslims among the American security and the bias extends towards other South Asians (India, Pakistan etc) Can we do anything to eliminate that bias. No! Also, we have to go by the track record of U.S security after the 9/11 attacks as they have made their borders very secure, to which they,as a soverign nation, have right to do so.

Also, it is important to understand how the system of police in a nation works. The American officers are often targeted to have 'names' for each kind of criminal they seek for. Terrorists of different religion have been given code names of all kinds. Policemen are trained in such a way as to be extra precautious with certain sir-names. All these and many other so called 'biases' are on the record as the American security agencies are in no way ashamed of. Call them whatever you want: Racists, Hypochodnriacs or whatever--the thing is they have every right to be whatever they have chosen for themselves. The matter be left with them.

We, on the other hand, must choose not to pick on the baseless comments from a great writer. (May be in a better imaginative mood if he writes about patriotism centered for the nation he could understand.) We must introspect ourselves and see where we lack. We can have similar system as theirs' and subject their citizens to selfsame checks and frisking. While in this case, we have a very bad track record of Mumbai attacks, sea0side criminals form international waters, loopholes in the homeland security, corruption and breaches in the security covers, we can't just shrug off our responsibilty by simply trying or seeming to try dictating lessons to a 'safe' nation.To offer a food for thought, imagine India adopting security checks so stringent that nobody is allowed to pass by without frisking despite that it takes an extra half an hour from the traveler's life on that day, and brings about a change that all the intruders are caught at the security lines, leading to no attacks on our people and in the wake assuring a safety for the sons of soil--I personally would not mind such a stringent system at the cost of losing that half an hour and instead gaining a precious life of a soldier, child or a commoner.

PS: For Javed: write a poem mocking the Indian system of security instead and quill a few lines in solidarity to those who lost their innocent lives; and I would keep loving you and your work.