Shubhra Gupta How important is it to have the backing of a Hollywood studio giant for a Bollywood film to get the kind of visibility My Name Is Khan has got? The answer, as the box-office results come pouring in from overseas, is clear: whatever its artistic merits, Karan Johar's latest film, which marries such disparate subjects as disability and religious identity to raise the flag of world peace, has attained the distinction of being the biggest Bollywood release till now.
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My Name Is Khan made Rs 25 crore on opening day ( 3 Idiots made that sum over two days, and that was the highest grosser till Khan came galumphing along). The film, released by Fox Searchlight, was second only to Valentine's Day, Warner Bros' mammoth V-Day offering, which shot straight to the top last weekend. Numbers-wise, it may be behind Valentine's Day, but the box-office results suggest that, finally, this may be the Big Fat Bollywood movie which may really cross over. From the fervent embrace of NRI loyalists, for whom Shah Rukh Khan has godlike status, to the non-traditional audience which may finally be willing to experiment with a full-blown Bollywood film, holding out, as blandishments, the biggest Indian star, unabashed emotional moments, in a subject which has universal appeal. Who doesn't want world peace? Not ‘too' Indian The film has been slammed in several quarters as being opportunistic, of being made simply to succeed in the West. It needed to be different, so director-producer Karan Johar dreamt up a protagonist who has Asperger's Syndrome, a kind of high-functioning autism which leaves your brain cells in superb working order, but leaves you socially inept. American audiences will not accept anything ‘too' Indian and ‘too' alien, so it has been set in familiar locations (San Francisco and other places in the US). Johar is known for mounting his films extremely lavishly, and MNIK looks lovely, all lit up warmly; but again, its characters are kept away from the desi brocade-y excess that afflicted Johar's previous outings ( Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai). So Kajol, who plays the female lead, dresses the way any well-dressed suburban mom would (except that that subtle makeup-less look needs to be done by an expert!). As a film, it has flaws, sure. No one like Rizwan Khan, who cannot meet people's eyes, and have reciprocal conversation, can find it quite so easy to find a woman to love and keep. Kajol's character treats Rizwan interestingly — a mix of maternal and wifely feelings, which is better than romantic song-and-dance, but is still hugely improbable. What is even more improbable is Rizwan's reaction to a Katrina-like flood somewhere in Georgia. Anyone with a condition like Rizwan's would duck and hope that it would go away rather than confront it full on. He goes off to help the flood victims, because a young Black kid and his mother had befriended him in his quest — a trek through the back-roads of America in order to meet the President of the US, to tell him that he is a Khan, a Muslim, and that he is a good man. That he is not a terrorist.
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