"My Name is Khan": Fighting Terrorism the Bollywood Way

Interestingly, at Fame, My Name is Khan is preceded by or intercepted by trailers of films having titles such as Lahore and Tere Bin Laden. All of a sudden, and perhaps, deservingly so, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Al-Qaida, and terrorism have entered the Bollywood scriptwriter’s favourite-list. There’s nothing to believe, of course, that these scriptwriters are dying to fight a social cause; for, Bollywood is far too commercial to do art for art’s sake, or address a social cause out of a sense of necessity. The eye is always on the box-office and these days themes related to terrorism are fetching money. For a hardcore commercial filmmaker like Karan Johar, My Name is Khan is just another project that he thought would set the box-office bells ringing. To the theme of terrorism, he adds another crowd-pulling formula: a diseased protagonist. Taare Zameen Par had made dyslexia an upmarket disease; and Paa had projeria raising the expectation bars. Now you have Asperger’s Syndrome! And why do you think actors like Amitabh Bachachan and Shah Rukh Khan enthusiastically take up these roles? For, they all of a sudden realize that they need to act seriously. Portraying a diseased character gives ample opportunity to act, really. So, the preoccupation with rare diseases and the filmmaker’s show of social awareness should be taken with a large pinch of salt. Everything is fixatedly focussed on the box-office return. While sympathizing with SRK and wiping your tears with the edge of your handkerchief, do not overlook the economic side of it all. By the way, let me clarify at the very outset that SRK is extremely loveable in MNIK. I haven’t seen anyone suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome; I guess very few people have. But, somehow SRK makes it look convincing, although a reality-check on it is a little difficult.

Postmodern history is best understood through stories of the individual who not always makes to the headlines, but has the historical moment inscribed in him, in his body or his psyche. So, postmodern literature and cinema turn to the individual and relate history through narrating the personal. My Name is Khan captures the historical moment of a paradigm shift in world history, the fateful 9/11 incident that divided the world into “us” and the “Muslims”. Rizwan Khan goes out into the world to destroy this binary, having lost his stepson in a racial fight on the soccer field, post-9/11. The odyssey he undertakes across America to meet the President takes him across ethnic cultures that shape the American multicultural melting pot. This odyssey is for the sake of love; for, his emotionally shattered wife asks him to visit the President and tell him that “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist.” Deeply hurt, almost insane with grief, Mandira holds her marriage to a Muslim man responsible for his son’s predicament. As she continues to fight for justice, Rizwan tours the US seeking an opportunity to meet the President and ends up in jail while he is mistaken for a terrorist at a meeting in which George Bush is the chief speaker. Assisted by the media, Rizwan is freed, but he refuses to return to Mandira who has by this time realised her mistake. A terrible hurricane strikes Wilhelmina and Rizwan braves all odds to save Mama Jenny and her son, a black American family that had given him shelter. He becomes famous overnight and moves all and sundry into playing the Good Samaritan. American history sees a remarkable turn with an African American President coming to power. The television channels splash headlines such as the “Victory of Democracy” while Rizwan recovers from a serious injury caused by a Muslim fundamentalist. He finally meets the President, and announces that he is not a terrorist. He emerges as the spokesperson of a community which has been suffering since 9/11, for wrongs which they were never responsible for. Several emotionally charged moments add up to a sentimental climax, a la KJo films, and suddenly all seems well in the classic Hindi film style ending. This is where the film loses the audience’s sympathy.

It’s commendable that the filmmaker tells the story from both sides as evident in the loss of Rizwan-Mandira’s white journalist friend who is sent to cover the war in Afghanistan. Rizwan weaves his story of loss in the insufferable story of the Black Americans, those who lost their near and dear ones in the Iraq war. Again, the 1983 Hindu-Muslim riots in Bombay appear in the flashback. The film cuts across borders, national, ethnic or otherwise, by telling the whole story through the eyes of a man who sees the world as divided into two kinds of people: good and evil. Rizwan’s simplicity is that of a child, so is his innocence. Perhaps the film advocates a return to the lost days of innocence when labels hardly matter.

SRK as Rizwanur is simply loveable. The moment of the film is that when Mandira proposes to him in the backdrop of the high rises of San Francisco bathed in the halo of dawn and he acts coy, covers his face demurely. Kajol looks rather fatigued; kind of disinterested in what she is doing. The chemistry does not work! No, it doesn’t. Gone are the days of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai! The other actors are more or less okay. The music with a heavy doze of Sufism sets the right kind of mood. Sajda really rocks!

My Name is Khan is good; but not great. The film in a way reassures that the Bollywood hero is still alive. So what if he suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome! He is still the braveheart, the Good Samaritan. In this sense, the film is rather traditional. The hero does not fight petty villains anymore; he is saddled with a larger responsibility of fighting a global war of love and hate and he emerges successful in the conventional Bollywood style. MNIK could have been a landmark film had it not been so traditionally Bollywoodish after all! Go for it; it deserves a one-time watch despite numerous loopholes in the plot.