Why western stars shine brighter in the star-spangled Indian sky

The curious case of the arrival, hasty departure and prompt return of the British-born Hollywood actor Orlando Bloom, thanks to a glitch in his e-visa application, demonstrates the best and the worst of India’s creaky sarkari system. If a cantankerous immigration official in New Delhi refused to give the Pirates of the Caribbean star the benefit of the doubt, it was not unlike what his counterparts at London’s Heathrow or New York’s JFK would probably mete out to Indians of similar or greater fame. Enough Indian notables — including late President APJ Abdul Kalam and Shah Rukh Khan — have remonstrated about such behaviour by surly airport staff abroad for anyone to aver this is a peculiarly Indian problem. Indeed, Khan’s comment after his second run-in in 2012 bears repetition, "Whenever I start feeling too arrogant about myself, I always make a trip to America. The immigration guys kicked the star out of stardom."

However, the swift redressal of Bloom’s plight with the personal intervention of the external affairs minister was quintessentially Indian, as we are naturally attuned to fast-tracking all kinds of VIP issues. In contrast, it has taken three years from the Khan episode for US to come round to accepting a list of important Indians for exemption from special treatment of the unpleasant kind!