The news arrived to Egypt’s Indian community grapevine long before the movie hit the cinema. In Egypt, where veteran Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan was once a local favorite and continues to be remembered, cinemas now host the new king of Bollywood. This time actor Shah Rukh Khan declares his reign in director Karan Johar’s “My Name is Khan, a romantic drama that employs the device of an idiot savant to interpret 9/11 and its aftermath.
Galaxy cinema is only about half-full as I enter, and has more Egyptians than Indians. People have heard about it through various sources, the regular posters and trailers in cinemas, some Indians through a mailer from an Indian community listing, and word-of-mouth.
As early as last November, when India was guest of honor at the Cairo International Film Festival, director of the Maulana Abul Center for Indian Culture Suchitra Durai told Daily News Egypt that plans were underway to bring Indian cinema from its long hiatus back to the Egyptian silver screen.
“To prepare the market to receive Indian films, we did a lot of press releases, Antione Zeind, distributor for 20th Century Fox, the distributor for this Indian film, told Daily News Egypt. Local newspapers such as Al Masry El Youm and Al Shorouk, as well as magazines such as Teen Stuff, What Women Want, and He Said, She Said also carried information on the release.
“As we are partners in a few cinemas and multiplexes in Cairo and Alexandria, said Zeind, “we put a lot of ads and publicity materials so everyone is aware this is a special film.
Meet Khan
Having Asperger’s syndrome gives the lead character, Rizwan Khan, a double-edge: an inability to lie at a time of immense political unrest, but also clarity unclouded by emotion. À la Forrest Gump, he quotes his mother’s truisms, especially that only deeds – not religion – differentiate the good from the bad. His observation on his times is thus all the more poignant: “In this part of the world, time is divided by BC and AD, and now by 9/11.
Rizwan’s condition also endows him with a dogged insistence on saying things others would not, such as the fact that he is determined to convey to the American president: “My Name is Khan, and I’m not a terrorist. The journey and the movie seem interminably long, the plot spanning an unlikely seven years, taking Rizwan from the time of 9/11 to the election of Barack Obama as president.
His equally unlikely achievements – from risking his life to save those of Georgia residents stuck in a hurricane, to meeting President Obama (again reminiscent of Forrest Gump) – endear him to the audience. I hear sniffling from my back seat, and assume it is the Indians oh-so-typically moved by Shah Rukh Khan’s “hamming – a term now used in India to describe emotional overacting. But surprisingly, when Shah Rukh talks about the loss of his son, my obviously Egyptian neighbor, I notice, is also shedding a few tears.
I am reminded of a South Asian film class I took years ago where an American student once commented on the “emotional superiority of Indian cinema. While I would not go so far, I nevertheless find myself question why this movie – compared to “Avatar which bagged more Oscar nominations – manages to elicit a round of applause at the end of its screening at an Egyptian cinema.
Rashida, an Indian viewer who had brought her family to the screening, was also pleased by the movie. “It had everything, her companions said, referring perhaps to all that makes Bollywood famous and notorious.
Nourhan Nehad, who had brought her mother to the cinema, tells Daily News Egypt that she’s heard of the movie through Youtube. An avid fan of many of Bollywood’s male stars, she says she likes Shah Rukh the most. Her mother confesses she was a fan of Amitabh Bachchan herself. “But they have no dancing in this movie, says the mother about “My Name is Khan.
While the dance-routine may be missing, there is definitely a song to go with the theme of the movie, the equivalent of the English “We Shall Overcome. As is bound to happen in Indian movies, Rizwan Khan finds his personal favorite song which he sings with his beloved echoed in the sentiments of another American, thus binding his Indian identity to that of a larger humanity.
Surprisingly this movie is not a defense of Islam, but an assertion of the fact – spoken through a device that speaks nothing but the truth – that a human is first and foremost only human; not a religion, and consequently a terrorist.
Finally it is also a story of loyalty. Rizwan is both loyal to the people he loves – those that he meets in Katrina. By nature of his “disability he is loyal to the truth, and finally he is loyal to his word; “A Khan, he says, once again quoting his mother, “always keeps his word.
For avid Bollywood fans, good news: “New York, New York is the next Bollywoood film planned to be released locally, according to Zeind. For the present time, the Egyptian silver screens may just have found their new Amitabh Bachchan. His name is Khan.
For more information on the movie, visit http://www.mynameiskhanthefilm.com
