The day Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna released (August 11, 2006, five years after Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham), you had told us you wouldn’t take so much time to make your next film. But it’s again been more than three years...
I stuck to my commitment that it won’t be five years again (laughs)! I think My Name Is Khan was a tough film to make. It was a different experience. It required a lot of research. It required a lot of sensitive handling. We had some infrastructure issues while shooting the film. It wasn’t an easy shoot. Coupled with the fact that it was an enormous endeavour, it made me go beyond the stipulated time period.
My Name Is Khan is the first film directed by you but not written by you. And your scripts have been the mainstay of your films. Why change a winning formula?
Shibani Bathija has written both the story and screenplay. She had co-written the script of KANK with me. My contribution to the story and screenplay of MNIK is purely as a filmmaker and not as a scriptwriter. I just felt that the film’s love story had to be completely different. If I wrote it, I would bring in a certain kind of been-there-done-that quality. My love story writing might have had a deja vu quality which I didn’t want this film to have.
The love story of Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol as Rizwan and Mandira needed to be projected in a totally unusual manner. It is not your run-of-the-mill common situation love story. It is the story of a man with a disorder, Asperger Syndrome, which is a high-functioning autism, and a divorcee, and then finding a common ground of love and acceptance. That love needed to be written effectively and hence the endeavour of getting someone else to write it. And Shibani and I share a sensitivity and a sensibility that is fairly common. There is an easy synergy between us and I felt a good film can be made with that synergy.
 |
| Karan Johar |
Is it a sense of deja vu for you, when you direct Shah Rukh and Kajol? Or has anything changed between 1998 and 2009?
There’s been a tremendous amount of evolution in us as people and therefore us as actors and technicians. I think there’s a certain kind of restraint, a certain kind of maturity... I think we have also emerged above and beyond trivial and little, little insecurities that we as people may have had a decade ago.
Right now, we are addressing larger issues, as people and as a group of creative people. Also, I feel there is a responsibility, not only to ourselves and our achievements, but to cinema. And I see that even in Kajol, who was very spontaneous and just went with her gut earlier. Today, she goes with her gut but also gives it a lot of head.
What drew you to the theme of the film in the first place?
It was definitely the global perception of the minority community, of Islam. It’s been something that has bothered me. In my travels, I felt there’s a large level of unawareness, a large level of ignorance. We as a human race tend to generalise very easily, tend to club things in one slot and we never get out of that.
I felt that a film had to be made to address that on an international level and deal with the issue sensitively. What we are saying is all about humanity and oneness. We are definitely scratching the surface much more than we ever have. And we are doing it through a love story.
So, the initial conjecture that the film is about terrorism is completely baseless. It’s not about a terrorist... it’s about the perception of a religion, which works against the grain of humanity and oneness, which most religions actually preach and which most democracies want to achieve. We are living in a world that is very slotted, very generalised and very ignorant. And we thought, Shah Rukh and I as a team, that as responsible filmmakers we should address it effectively.
But this slotting is not just about religion, it’s about sexual preference, about the colour of skin, about being fat... why only highlight religion?
What we are talking about is unity. What we are saying that human beings are over and above a religion. We are definitely addressing all the issues, very subliminally, very subtly. It’s about humanity and humanity has no creed, no caste.
A huge chunk of the audience will be going to the theatres on February 12 to watch Shah Rukh romance Kajol. Would they go back disappointed?
The film is a love story, at the end of the day. We are not saying it’s not. But if anybody is expecting Kuch Kuch, Kabhi Khushi or Dilwale, then they should not. It’s not that kind of love story.
Read the rest HERE.
