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Suspicious Men in the Bathroom Melvin Durai Melvin Durai is an Indiana-based writer and humorist. Born in Tamil Nadu, India, he grew up in Zambia and moved to the U.S. in the early 1980s. In 1995, while working as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Chambersburg, Pa., he began writing a regular humor column. His weekly column now appears in several newspapers and on a number of Web sites. He also writes a twice-monthly column on Indian and Indian-American issues. He is a diehard fan of the National Football League and also likes to run, lift weights and play soccer, tennis and pool. An award-winning feature writer and aspiring novelist, he plans to publish a collection of his best columns. You can write to him at comments@melvindurai.com To read his older columns, go to http://www.melvindurai.com

It was Sept. 11, 2002, the first anniversary of the infamous terrorist attacks, and airport security was tighter than ever. In fact, security officers at Los Angeles airport were so busy, they had to turn down Michael Jackson's repeated requests to be frisked.

The pop star tried everything to gain their attention, including wearing a turban and fake beard, singing "I'm bad. I'm bad," and introducing himself as Michael bin Laden. But the only attention he received was from a 40-year-old pop fan: "Hey, you look very familiar. Aren't you one of the Pointer Sisters?"

Meanwhile, up in the sky, aboard a Northwest Airlines plane bound for Las Vegas, three dark-skinned men did something very suspicious. Very suspicious indeed. They went to the washroom.

Television news networks were soon reporting that the plane had been diverted to Fort Smith, Arkansas, because a group of "Arabs" had holed themselves up in the washroom and refused to come out. Never mind that only one of the men, an Egyptian, was Arabic. The other two -- 48-year-old Gurdeep Singh Wander and 41-year-old Harinder Pal Singh -- were Indians (and turban-less ones at that), but why let such details get in the way of a good story?

After all, nobody would be overly concerned about a couple of Indians hiding in the washroom. Imagine the reports:

CNN: "After two Indians spent a long time in the washroom, the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing. He apparently suspected that the Indians had used up all the toilet paper."

MSNBC: "Nobody knows why the two Indians stayed in the washroom so long, but other passengers suspect they had brought some food aboard and didn't want to share."

FOX: "Our sources believe that the two Indians wanted to remain in the washroom because they were fascinated with the automatic flush system. The Indian ambassador supports this theory, stating that his people are big on technology."

A reporter for The Times Record, the daily newspaper in Fort Smith, identified Wander and Singh as Indians, but still wrote that "three men of Middle Eastern descent were arrested." He had apparently traced Wander's and Singh's genealogy all the way to Cairo.

It isn't clear whether the Indians ever occupied the washroom simultaneously. What's clear is that Wander stayed there longer than a flight attendant deemed necessary. But if spending a lot of time in a restroom is a crime, then someone needs to arrest my wife.

According to reports, Wander refused to leave the washroom and was apparently shaving with his shirt off. When the other two men headed to the washroom with shaving kits, all the warning sirens went off. After all, the hijackers who perpetrated last year's dastardly attacks had received instructions to shave their bodies. Perhaps this year's bunch were just chronic procrastinators. "Hey guys, we forgot to shave before our mission. We'd better do it now -- or the women we'll get in heaven will all be ugly."

I have no idea if the Indian men really did anything wrong. But considering that even South Indian movie stars Samyuktha Verma and Kamalahasan couldn't fly without arousing security concerns, perhaps their biggest mistake was not taking the bus.

For an email subscription to Melvin's regular weekly columns (not the ones that appear here), go to www.MelvinDurai.com

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