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EXCLUSIVE: Vivek Dahiya raises his voice against discrimination at the Budapest airport
Vivek Dahiya feels that tourists and citizens should be treated equally.
Actor Vivek Dahiya had a rather unpleasant tryst with immigration officials while on his way back from Budapest! Vivek happens to be one of the most well-traveled actors in our industry who has in this year alone been to UK, France, Dubai, Italy, and Hungary internationally and covered many cities in India as well in his travel adventures.
Vivek says, "I have been traveling since I was 18 and in fact, have lived and studied in the UK for 7 years. In all the travel I have in the last fourteen years, never have I faced such an issue. Budapest was my first trip in which I faced discrimination! In the first few days, there were a few small incidents which I shrugged off thinking that it was either a mere coincidence or maybe that the people in this country were generally not extremely warm. It was later that I realized that they chose to behave a certain way towards outsiders and then the preferential treatment at the airport made it all the worse."
Recalling the incident the actor says, "We were waiting in the immigration queue and were getting late for our flight. In fact, we were worried that we may miss our flight! And then for no reason, the immigration officer decided to take a large group of 15 Americans who were behind us first. We raised our voice and questioned them but they turned a deaf ear. Its surprising to see tourists being treated this way in a European country as we know that one of their highest sources of income tends to be tourism!"
"And then you return to India, you realize that in our country we tend to value the fairer skin and the Western tourists over our own Indians. The question here for me is not about valuing one above another but rather I wonder why we are not working towards equality. Be it an Indian, a Chinese or an African, each country should treat tourists and their own citizens equally. Its the preferential treatment that spoils the cake!" exclaimed the actor.
