I just recently watched “My Name Is Khan” starring Sharukah Khan & Kajol and I thought that i would do a movie review on it. Whenever I watch a Bollywood movie I try not to read to much about the plot. This way when I watch the movie I can be surprised by the storyline. When picking a movie I just go by the actors and recommendations by people who have seen it 🙂 In this specific case the title, “My Name is Khan” doesn’t say much about the movie but since it stars two of the biggest names in Indian cinema and with all the 5 star ratings it received  I knew it was a movie worth watching.

As many fans of Bollywood movies can attest, usually prior to the intermission the characters are defined, their backstories defined and a picture perfect image of the characters are created. By the time the intermission is completed the movie takes a complete 180 turn and we learn all about the plot and the major issues, secrets and conflicts between each of the characters.

“My Name Is Khan” was no different and the story basically revolves around a young mulsim boy (Rizwan Khan) with Asperger syndrome who has many social disabilities at a young age but is lovingly brought up by his mother who teaches him the ways of how to live a decent and good life. Rizwan though cursed with social disabilities is blessed with an uncanny skill of being able to fix just about anything mechanical and with this skill manages to earn the respect of a wise and educated man within the village who helps Rizwan hone his skills and also earns respect from the villagers by helping them clean their town center after it is damaged by floods.

Rizwan grows up to be an upstanding man and loving husband to Mandira, his Hindu wife (played by Kajol) woos into marrying him through his charm and his loving nature. They live life together happily running their beauty salon and raising Mandira’s child (Joel) who was from her previous marriage.

Life is perfect until the september 11 attacks occur and their life is changed. Due to the instant resentment towards Muslims and the persecution of anyone who resembled a muslim looking man (or women) either by attire, name or look their beauty salon business bearing the name Khan is instantly effected when no more customers come through their door even though Mandira herself is not a Muslim but simply bares the name Khan through marriage. Both Rizwan & Mandira manage to get by but things change forever when their son Joel is killed due to racial persecution by kids at his high school. Mandira blames Rizwan for her sons death as a result of his name and the pair part ways.

From there Rizwan begins his journey for redemption and to understand why Muslims are being persecuted the way they are when he remembers his mother teaching him that all men are the same and the only differing factor is their are good men and there are bad men, color, skin race and religion do not matter.

“My Name is Khan” is a beautiful movie of love, struggle & redemption and one that I wish more people could watch. I show it to many of my friends and most of them can’t help but get teary eye’d. It’s one of the movies that I think defines greatly why I like indian cinema. It gives the other side of terrorism a face, the side where other muslims stare in disbelief at the actions of people that share the same beliefs as them but commit murder at such a large scale that its unimaginable to anyone (same beliefs or not). As a result the rest of the Muslims are persecuted simply because they share the same beliefs even though they don’t share any of the violent ideologies and are actually whole heartily against them. In many Bollywood movies this is represented well but I think this aspect, where the bad guys are the “Muslims” is something that many times is grossly mis-represented in the typical hollywood movies.

I think it’s Sharuhkah Khan at one of his best (It was great to see SRK play someone who has Asperger’s and less suave should we say – Kinda like Priyanka Chopra in Barfi) and seeing him work with Kajol in this very different context is great. I’m sure they must have worked together many times but the last time i remember watching this duo was in the classic “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai”.

It’s a great movie and one I will recommend to many other people who don’t mind watching foreign movies. Hope Bollywood keep making movies this great !

AND BTW, if by some freak of nature SRK types something into google and this page comes up I just want to say …. thanks for visiting Indonesia Sharukah, hope you visit again when im around so I can get an autograph 🙂