My Name Is Khan: A review

There’s been much hullabaloo over what Shah Rukh Khan had said about the exclusion of Pakistani players from the IPL 3. Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray’s followers have been up in arms against the Bollywood actor and his My Name Is Khan. The film’s release has been threatened, theatre screens torn and Shah Rukh branded a traitor. But has Thackeray taken the trouble of watching the film to see for himself if it’s at all objectionable? In fact, My Name Is Khan is a movie that needs a viewing by every right-thinking person aware of the horrors of 9/11 and its repercussions for the world's Muslim population.

The film is significant for yet another reason – its sensitive portrayal of autism in an Indian film. Karan Johar – so famous for lengthy tearjerkers with characters speaking a trademark lovey-dovey language – has gone against his own grain with My Name Is Khan. It’s perhaps his best work till date and exemplifies Johar’s sensitivity to the issue in hand, namely Asperger syndrome. Unlike R. Balki’s Paa which used a rare genetic disorder as a means to an obvious Bollywood end, in Johar’s film the protagonist’s problem is an end in itself: it makes you aware of and sensitive to the problems of the “different” child you see waiting at the local bus stop every morning with his mom.

But My Name Is Khan is not preachy. The narrative moves back and forth between past and present, giving a world view reminiscent of Forrest Gump where the naïve narrator-protagonist makes no attempt at commenting on the sequence of events. Like the eponymous hero of the Hollywood gem, Rizvan Khan (Shah Rukh) in My Name Is Khan has a development disorder (Asperger syndrome) that comes in the way of his interaction with people. Again, like Forrest, he undertakes a cross-country odyssey making unlikely friends and helping those in need. All along, both the heroes influence popular culture and become icons of their respective times.

Rizvan, however, has a purpose: he wants to meet the President of the United States and give the man of power a simple message. And this message is what makes the film so noble in its purpose. From the very moving opening where the autistic man is grilled and frisked by airport security personnel to the very end where he meets and shakes hands with the first African American President of the United States, Rizvan’s message – “My name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist” – is a poignant reminder of the western world’s flawed perception of Islam and its adherents.

My Name Is Khan is Shah Rukh’s film and he shines. His performance as autistic Rizvan is almost on a par with his terrific portrayal of a women’s hockey coach in Chak De! India (2007). As Rizvan’s wife Mandira, Kajol is equally good. In fact, she looks so pretty in certain scenes and so cut out for her role that the director deserves another round of kudos for pairing her with Shah Rukh.

It’s immaterial if Rizvan’s detention at an American airport is a re-enactment of Shah Rukh’s own detention at the Newark International Airport on the night of 14 August 2009. What’s of importance is, My Name Is Khan addresses a problem that has almost entered our collective unconscious after the collapse of the World Trade Center. And it does so with enough sensitivity through the affecting words and deeds of a naïve autistic man.

Four bright, deserving stars!

(Read: Reel to real: The autism story)


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