Rediff reports (desinole via Über Desi Twitter) that the heartbeat of Malayalam cinema masses, Mammootty, (with all due respect to Mohanlal fans) was subjected to ethnic stereotyping at New York’s JFK airport.
Was it because of moustache envy? Perhaps, but Mammootty’s real name seems to be the more likely cause.
Mammootty’s real name, which appears in his passport as Muhammad Kutty Ismail. When the immigration official saw the last name Ismail, he sent the actor to a separate room for questioning. Mammootty has visited the US 22 times, once after the 9/11 attacks. But this was the first time he was questioned.
Since the 9/11 attacks, thousands of people of Indian origin, with or without Muslim names have been subject to this kind of ethnic profiling at airport. To this day, there has been very little coverage of ethnic stereotyping encountered by regular Indian passengers, Muslims or otherwise, at US airports. The fact that the Indian media chooses to report it only when a celebrity is subject to the same is not lost on us.
Coming back to the Mammootty, the moustached macho man of Malayalam movies, shrugs it off.
“Every country has its laws and systems. We too have it. We should obey those laws. I did not feel discriminated or harrassed when I was questioned at the airport, This is not something that happened to me alone. So there is no point taking it seriously,”
The immigration officials were just fortunate they did not tick Mammootty off like this leopard did.
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