Dutch couple pay Rs. 10,000/- for Samosa!

So much for Athithi Dhevobhava!!!

New Delhi: A Dutch couple on a visit to Bihar paid 10,000 rupees for four samosas that usually doesn’t cost more than a few rupees, a newspaper reported on Monday.

After the tourists ate the snacks, a stall owner at the Sonepur cattle fair last week told them his "special" samosas cost more because they were made of herbs and had aphrodisiac qualities, the Hindustan Times said.

After an argument, the couple paid the shopkeeper. But they later complained to a policeman. Police forced the shopkeeper to return the change, which turned out to be 9,990 rupees.

Is this what America stands for?

I read this whole story and felt dazed. I thought many times before putting this stuff on my blog. I know that writing stuff on to the internet always has the risk of it coming back to bite me. I have heard that some people’s blog entries have been reason enough to be denied entry into some countries. But, then the more I thought about it, I realized one simple truth. No matter which country, no matter which land, no matter which faith, a handful of people are enough to cast a bad name on the entire community.

The United States is a country that I love a lot. I respect the American citizens for how they have turned their country into. The history of America is always interesting for me. As in the History, even now some people act and behave against what America stands for. This I guess is one such incident.

At first I thought of posting an excerpt from the original post and add the link to the original post as is my usual habit. But, the sheer nature of this post prompted me to have the entire post on my blog itself. Just in case the original post vanishes….

At JFK Airport, Denying Basic Rights Is Just Another Day at the Office

I was recently stopped by Homeland Security as I was returning from a trip to Syria. What I saw in the hours that followed shocked and disturbed me.

Homeland Security

I arrived at JFK Airport two weeks ago after a short vacation to Syria and presented my American passport for re-entry to the United States. After 28 hours of traveling, I had settled into a hazy awareness that this was the last, most familiar leg of a long journey. I exchanged friendly words with the Homeland Security official who was recording my name in his computer. He scrolled through my passport, and when his thumb rested on my Syrian visa, he paused. Jerking toward the door of his glass-enclosed booth, he slid my passport into a dingy green plastic folder and walked down the hallway, motioning for me to follow with a flick of his wrist. Where was he taking me, I asked him. “You’ll find out,” he said.

We got to an enclosed holding area in the arrivals section of the airport. He shoved the folder into my hand and gestured toward four sets of Homeland Security guards sitting at large desks. Attached to each desk were metal poles capped with red, white and blue siren lights. I approached two guards carrying weapons and wearing uniforms similar to New York City police officers, but they shook their heads, laughed and said, “Over there,” pointing in the direction of four overflowing holding pens. I approached different desks until I found an official who nodded and shoved my green folder in a crowded metal file holder. When I asked him why I was there, he glared at me, took a sip from his water bottle, bit into a sandwich, and began to dig between his molars with his forefinger. I found a seat next to a man who looked about my age — in his late 20s — and waited.

Omar (not his real name) finished his fifth year in biomedical engineering at City College in June. He had just arrived from Beirut, where he visited his family and was waiting to go home to the apartment he shared with his brother in Harlem. Despite his near-perfect English and designer jeans, Omar looked scared. He rubbed his hands and rocked softly in his seat. He had been waiting for hours already, and, as he pointed out, a number of people — some sick, elderly, pregnant or holding sobbing babies — had too. There were approximately 70 people detained in our cordoned-off section: All were Arab (with the exception of me and the friend I traveled with), and almost all had arrived from Dubai, Amman or Damascus. Many were U.S. citizens.

We were in the front row, sitting a few feet from two guards’ desks. They sneered at each bewildered arrival, told jokes in whispers, swiveled in their office chairs and greeted passing guards who stopped to talk — guards who had a habit of looping their fingers into their holsters. One asked his friend how many nationalities were represented in the room. “About 20. Some of everything today.”

No one who had been detained knew precisely why they were there. A few people were led into private rooms; others were questioned out in the open at desks a few feet from the crowd and then allowed to pass through customs. Some were sent to another section of the holding area with large computer screens and cameras, and then brought back. The uninformed consensus among the detainees was that some people would be fingerprinted, have their irises scanned and be sent back to the countries from which they had disembarked, regardless of citizenship status; others would be fingerprinted and allowed to stay; and the unlucky ones would be detained indefinitely and moved to a more permanent facility.

US planning to deny visa to Modi again

Modi was invited last month to attend a Gujarati culture conference in New Jersey in August. Earlier in 2005, Modi was denied entry to the US to attend the same conference citing his role as the chief minister during the 2002 Gujarat riots.

The senior BJP leader has said he would not apply for visa until he was assured that his application will not be turned down. The State Department had in 2005 revoked his visa under the INA, which prohibits foreign government officials who are “responsible for severe violations of religious freedom” from obtaining US visas.

“As official bodies of the government of India have found, Narendra Modi is culpable for the egregious and systematic human rights abuses wrought against thousands of Indias Muslims. “Modi must demonstrate to the State Department and to the American people why he as a person found to have aided and abetted gross violations of human rights, including religious freedom should now be eligible for a tourist visa,” Gaer said.

[ Original Source: ExpressIndia.Com ]

On the brighter side, I would say, at least one minister wouldn’t be able to burn more of tax payers money on a US trip. I wish the US Consulate and all the other embassies in the world would come up with such or more stringent criteria on issuing visas to Indian ministers!!!