Watch | What a Difference a Letter Makes – Especially If the Name It Spells Is Muslim
Siddharth Varadarajan
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A travel agent issues tickets for a Delhi-Kochi flight to two journalists, but misspells their names by a single letter. The vigilant CISF guards manning the airport gates spotted the error, but let one of them enter the airport anyway while the other was told the mismatch in spelling meant they would not be allowed entry into the airport.
One's name was Siddharth, the other Ziya, one Hindu, one Muslim.
Guess who got in and who didn't.
They were both headed for the June 14, 2025 launch of the Malayalam edition of Ziya us Salam’s book, Being Muslim in Hindu India and The Wire’s founding editor, Siddharth Varadarajan began his speech with an account of what happened at Delhi airport.
The Wire is grateful to AIDEM and Venkitesh Ramakrishanan for the footage. This article went live on July twenty-eighth, two thousand twenty five, at four minutes past twelve at noon.
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