My name is khan Theme - Islam and the way the world looks at Islam Message - There are no good or bad Hindus or good or bad Muslims, only good and bad people

My name is Zaman. But I am not writing this article because I am a Muslim. I am writing this because I wept while I watched My Name Is Khan (MNIK). I watched it with hardened journalists, and each of them was crying. One was an Ajwani; the other a Sharma.

Why did we cry? I am reminded of an Urdu song from an old Hindi film. Jo humne dastaan apni sunayi, aap kyun roye — I was only telling my story, why did you weep? Because it was not just Khan’s story — it was ours as well.

MNIK is not just any old film. In the Hindi film industry, which has often showcased what’s popularly known as Muslim drama, the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer is a film that makes you weep. People in Berlin, London, Islamabad — and wherever else it is released — will all cry for its hero, Rizwan Khan. And they will all have their own reasons for doing so.

We grew, or grew older, after 9/11, or our own 26/11 — a world that blurred what Khan’s mother believes in. The world, she tells her son, has two kinds of people — the good and the bad. Only a mother can say this, and only a person with the innocence of Rizzu — as his mother calls him — will accept it as a fact of life.

It’s a film that has a message from a nationalist — or a universalist — Muslim to his community and outside. One of my colleagues, who is watching the film with me, mentions in the interval that the film could only have been made in India. Not because the protagonist is an Indian. But it’s because India has a liberal and nationalist tradition. Those weeping might not know or admit it — but they are asserting their faith in that liberal tradition. The success of MNIK reveals that this tradition is bigger than the challenges it has faced.

That’s why the film touches you deep inside. A spate of Hindi films in the recent past have brought out issues that have troubled us all. Indeed, after 26/11 Bollywood has confronted these issues head on — something that Hollywood has not in quite this manner — from racial profiling in New York (2009) to a terrorist that lurks within a Delhi University professor in Kurbaan (2009) to the ordinary Muslim who takes on terrorists in A Wednesday (2008), though the last film was perhaps made before the Mumbai attacks. The Muslim identity — with his angst or his stereotype — is the new leit motif of Bollywood.

In New York, director Kabir Khan and Aditya Chopra turn the arc lights on racism and the treatment of innocent suspects at US detention centres. Directed by Rensil D’Silva and starring Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Vivek Oberoi, Kurbaan too raises issues about global terrorism. My Name Is Khan, directed by Karan Johar (with Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol),deals with a family’s journey after 9/11, as SRK put it in an interview. The other films may make your cringe, but it’s MNIK that makes you cry.

New York Theme - Racism and the treatment of suspects Message - Post-9/11, prejudices have increased

But why did we cry? Was it the courage of Rizwan Khan that humbled us to tears? The courage that many of us fail to show in our respective lives — and our respective identities?

Before I answer that question, let me take you to an endearing scene from the film. An American hostess asks Rizwan about the chicken dish that has been served. Rizwan looks at his piece of chicken intently and then honestly says “It’s not good.”

So let me be honest about this honest film. My Name Is Khan is not just a cinematic landmark. It is a social and political landmark as well. And there lies the reason why we wept.

It marks a social and political milestone. The reception the film got in Delhi 6 — or the Walled City — and in Delhi 17 — the tonier South Delhi — tells you a tale. Across the pin codes, people cried. It was a film that Indian badly needed.

The film has a direct and blunt message for Muslims and from Muslims. And this message comes without a veil or camouflage because Rizwan, the autistic hero, is not capable of either.

It looks at all those looking at Muslims and delivers a straight message to them. There are good people, and there are bad people.You may say many films have done this before. In fact, the idolisation of a Muslim has been the staple of commercial Hindi cinema for decades. Once, there was the Muslim family, where the hero recited Urdu poetry and wooed the girl in a veil that revealed only the beauty of her eyes. Then came the bearded uncle — usually a chacha — who was the genial old man who stood by humanity. The rise in Islamic militancy changed the plot somewhat over the years. Suddenly, a devout Muslim who did his namaaz was the kidnapper of innocents. Or, post 1992 — when the Babri Masjid fell — and post 9/11 — when the western world suddenly saw Islam as a threat — Hindi cinema was dealing with the anguish, or even anger, of the ordinary Muslim.

New YorkTheme Racism and the treatment of suspects Message Post-9/11, prejudices have increased

But no film has underlined the fundamentals as clearly as this one has. Or, rather, as simply as Rizwan Khan — who suffers from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism that leaves you with few social skills but usually with an amazing brain — does. Perhaps we needed the straightness of a person with Asperger to make sense of a twisted world that emerged from the debris of Ayodhya and the New York twin towers.

Kurbaan Theme - Global terrorism Message - Both sides are responsible for terrorism

The film is distinct — and so very different. It’s almost Sufi like. The simple mind of Rizwan only comprehends the basics of humanity, which to him are sacrosanct and no debate can make him see any merit in terror. The young Rizzu or the grown up Rizwan cannot comprehend any justification of violence or terror.

He does not dwell a moment explaining or replying to the rhetoric of hate. He takes a clear stand against it. And he does this all without a sermon. In fact, Rizwan Khan is not capable of doling out sermons. He can only state what is right and what is wrong. In a defining moment in the film, he stones a terrorist and stuns the audience. In that moment, Rizwan Khan and MNIK soar above all and force the audience (irrespective of religion, region or their pin codes) to take a stand in favour of the good guys.

Rizwan does not try to be politically correct or offer any justification. It takes a Rizwan Khan to call a shaitan a shaitan – or a demon by its name. Few have had the courage to look a shaitan in the eye the way Rizwan Khan does. He does that, because for him the world is not divided into Hindus and Muslims — but between achhey insaan and burey insaan — or the good and the bad.

I think My Name Is Khan is to our generation what Garam Hava was to our Partition-torn parents. The 1973 film by M.S. Sathyu looked at the plight and disintegration of a Muslim family in the aftermath of Partition.

Saadat Hassan Manto may not have known of Asperger. If he did — and if the short story writer were alive today — he would have written My Name Is Khan, instead of Toba Tek Singh — the story of a Sikh on the Indo-Pak border during Partition.

The widespread acceptance of MNIK also reveals something very significant to all of us: the acceptance of blunt truths. It’s a sign of our maturity and tolerance. I call it a landmark film because it captures and relates to this change.

No, I am not exaggerating. Nor am I underplaying the import of the film. I am speaking the way Rizwan would have. After all, my name is Zaman. Or it could have been Ajwani or Sharma. Or just any other name.