While I have all my sympathies for what the family went through, I was shocked to read "I am ashamed to be an Indian" kind of reaction. Why? Does one set of officers constitute as a nation as varied as India? The French man would of course add fuel to the fire, that's all firangis have done all these years.
Let me ask, do we enter the U.S. without our visa? I'm not supporting the officers' behavior but I am shocked how you could forget such papers, and to top it, then be ashamed of your basic identity? Post-Godse, were Maharshtrians ashamed to be Marathis, or sikhs ashamed after Indira Gandhi's assassination? Are secular Muslims ashamed of their religion because of Osama? NO. And they needn't be.
Be proud to be an Indian, and you'll see the underlying reasons for all our problems. Those officers too, somewhere were probably obligated to be kind to the firnagi, rather than let him know India's Law cannot be taken for granted.
