His Name Is Khan, And He Is Shah Rukh
his name is khan, and he is shah rukh
For my money and time, Karan Johar is one of the most accomplished storytellers of Indian cinema. You only have to see what he has achieved in his chef d'oeuvre My Name Is Khan, his masterpiece, the one that Karan can show to his children when they are older and say, “My name is Karan, and I am not a fluff maker.”
I watched the film on the big screen today: My Name Is Khan has not dated even a bit. On the contrary, it is more relevant and resonant now than it was when released fourteen years ago.
Rizwan Khan’s message of peace for the President Of America needs to be conveyed to other heads of state. Pronto. Before it is too late. My Name Is Khan is a crushing blow to the politics of divisiveness. In its deeply felt masterfully communicated message of humanism, it stands next to Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa, Bimal Roy’s Sujata and Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Satyakam.
All three masterpieces mentioned above lack the epic scale and emotional velocity of Karan Johar’s film. Indeed, the question that I want to ask the intelligentsia of the country: have you watched Johar’s work in his best films especially My Name Is Khan? Why judge a book by its cover. Why judge Karan by his jacket?
The clarity and adeptness with which Karan Johar projects Rizwan’s character is evidence of Johar’s filmmaking panache. Rizwan repairs almost anything, including irreparably damaged relationships. But this film about damaged lives needs no repairing. My Name Is Khan is a flawless work, as perfect in content, tone and treatment as any film can get.
The 'message' of humanism doesn't comes across in long pedantic speeches. The film's longest monologue has our damaged but exceptionally coherent hero Rizwan telling a congregation of Black American church-goers about his dead son. And if that moment moves us to tears it's not because the emotions are either manipulative or flamboyant.
It isn't because Rizwan's son Sameer perished in a racial attack. It isn't even because Shah Rukh Khan delivers his life's best performance in that moment of reckoning. Rizwan's heartfelt rhetoric is not about changing the world with words. Born with a physical disability, this is a man on the move. And boy, does he move us! Ironically Rizwan doesn’t like anyone to touch him. However, Rizwan’s compassion and his plea for peace touches the collective hearts of the audience that watched this masterpiece.
In my original review, I had given the film 5 stars and described the film as flawless. Now watching it again after so many years, I say the film is beyond the stars. My Name Is Khan should, must, be released again in movie theatres, not only because it is Shah Rukh Khan’s best by far, not even for being a testimony to Karan Johar’s monstrously undermined craftsmanship and storytelling acumen (this film puts him right up there with the masters of our movies) but primarily because it tells us why we need to erase the politics of hatred from our recent history.
There are some things that even Rizwan can’t repair. A divisive body-politic is one of them. This is film that repairs the damage done to our country by the politics of hatred. It does much much more than entertain. It heals.