My name is Shah Rukh Khan. Whenever I go to the USA they take me aside for questioning. It sucks.
My name is Bikram. The computers around the world are not programmed for brilliance so they go whirr whirr clackety clack and circle '-ikram' and I am requested to step aside. The same goes for 'Geetanjai' and 'Anjali' and that's the way computers work.
Now, I am not famous like Shah Rukh Khan but most people who work at American airports are just average Joes who are so dramatically parochial they have no idea who he is or even where exactly India is. As much as it is very unlikely that the new age staff at an Indian airport will recognise Robert DeNiro or Al Pacino.
Also, Indians watch Hollywood. Americans do not watch Bollywood. And unlike Heathrow, which has Indians by the hundreds, US airports do not. If there had been rubbernecking Indians transiting or on the flight desperate to see their hero it would cut no ice with Customs and Immigration who would have gone by the rules.
The first time that Shah Rukh was held up, his name went into the maw of the big, bad wolf called a Cray computer which munches up everything and remembers everything and underscores everything and so it does not matter who you are; once your name is in the system you will be marked by the computer as a person of interest.
The computer might be a whizz but it does not discern. Tunngggg, red light.
I have several pages in my passport with Arabic stamps. A dozen Mid-East countries over the past 30 years. I attend an aviation conference in Seattle. I have pamphlets in my bag describe aircrafts because I have to study for the seminar. I am a guest of Boeing. I represent a publication from that region.
Sierra! Their nice courteous way of saying, you aint going anywhere yet, bud.
Finally figured out that two plus two makes 10 in the computer's mind.
So now I know that I will be placed in the Sierra line which means a double check by security and a kind of walking the visual gauntlet.
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