Khan thy name is cinema
"We are all coming together to fight for a common cause-called
humanity." - Director Karan Johar
To All intents and purposes, currently, Bollywood seems to have
launched a blitzkrieg, to try and expand the limits of the possible, for
Indian cinema.
This may not have been deliberately planned. But, in effect, that
exactly is what is taking place in the world of Bollywood film making.
Landing with a soul-shaking thud, on the minds of the movie-going
masses, "The Three Idiots", unambiguously and hilariously made the
stunning declaration that Indian film comedy is just not what it has
been all along. Delivering fun at a mass - production rate and amassing
Box-Office revenues on a record breaking scale, "The Three Idiots",
administers sly but painful knocks on the heads of academic stupidity
and obscene pecuniary ostentation. It is outrageously funny and in the
same breath, is didactic in its own way. Its appeal was immediate and
trans-cultural.
And, now comes "My Name is Khan" - to shatter Box-Office histories
and above all, to demolish some assumed film-norms and human mores.
In the first instance, "My Name is Khan", is a cinematic parable,
about the malaise, that affects a wide swath of humanity, in our day.
Rizwan Khan, is pushed to the edge of society, from his childhood on,
because of the mild autism he suffers from his birth. His difference
from the generality of other children is troubling to his mother. But,
he possesses compensatory skills, that enable him to achieve some mild
victories. The doting mother is over-protective and is deeply anxious
about this handicapped child.
The maternal affection rouses, sibling jealousy in his brother. But
Rizwan Khan, does not have the emotional maturity to fathom this
development.
Adult Rizwan Khan (portrayed with adroit thespian finesse, by Sharukh
Khan), undertakes a tour of the US, on the invitation of his reconciled
brother and his wife.
This tour, gets transformed into a "Pilgrim's Progress", highlighted
by encounters with good and evil - with true humans and those who parade
in human guise.
His sister-in-law diagnoses his condition as Asperger Syndrome.
In some persons, he comes upon, he elicits a kind of pity, mixed with
affection. One such person charming Mandira (Kajol) moved vastly by
Khan's vulnerable innocence proposes marriage to him. She, a single
person living with her son, takes on his name Khan.
In he social "quake', that erupted in the aftermath of 9/11, in some
segments of human existence, name, race and religion, turned into
entities that could evoke irrational prejudices, with the potency to
lead even to excruciating violence. This emphatically underlines a stark
human irony. Name, race and religion, are wholesome phenomena, that
unify people and not divisive forces.
"My Name is Khan", stresses dramatically how thoughtless hatred had
poisoned such sacred usages. "Viewed This way", "My Name is Khan",
serves dramatically not only as an "Eye-opener" but, strangely enough as
a "Soul-Opener" as well.
The selection of mass idol Sharukh Khan to play Rizwan Khan, the
pathetic victim of the Asperger Syndrome, is an inspired stroke.
The reduction of the ever-ebullient, handsome and action-driven mass
hero Sharukh Khan, to the level of the pathetic, mildly artistic Rizwan
Khan, evokes viewer sympathy to the causes he dramatizes, with a telling
alacrity.
After Mandira's heart is irreparably shattered by the futile tragedy,
that made her lose her adorable son Sameer, Rizwan Khan, has no place in
her life. The death of the son, has brought about by Rizwan Khan, which
she and her son adopted. Though the tragedy underlines the irrational
viciousness of those who inhumanly hate labels, with scant reference to
stark reality of the victim's utter innocence, Mandira's wounded heart
cannot be comforted. Her sorrow burgeons, as her self-accusing
conscience tortures her for the name she took.
From that climactic development on, Rizwan Khan is propelled by the
magic mantram "My Name is Khan", which he has to proclaims to the
President, as the formula of redemption, Mandira has imposed on him.
Director Karan Johar (deliberately to my mind) manipulates the
development of the film's progress at a kind of semi-artistic pace,
which makes his cinematic product, have a peculiar hold on the mind and
the soul of the film-goers.
The upshot of all this is, a new dramatic statement by Bollywood.
'Indian cinema can expand not only the limits of the possible, but even
the limits of the impossible.
"My Name is Khan", drives home, quite emphatically, those burning
social problems and broad human issues are grist for the mill for
current Bollywood cinema production philosophy. Bollywood has captured
mass audiences, right across the globe, by its unique brand of
entertainment films. Bevies and bevies of bright beauties, lilting
music, hypnotisingly choreographed dance spectacles, and story-lines
that compensate and fulfil, created the Bollywood formula of mass
entertainment.
But, in the wake of "My Name is Khan", Bollywood will be widely
hailed as the producer of dramatic works, that will prove the
potentiality of the film - medium, as an instrument that can challenge
undaunted, the mass prejudices, that sour human relations everywhere.
Men and women could perhaps chant "Our Name is Khan" and "We Are
Not...." to drill the message of humanity into the ears of rulers.
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