My name is ‘clueless’

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I couldn’t resist penning this piece down after watching the first (of many I am sure!) teaser of Karan Johar’s next release – ‘My name is Khan’.

But before I begin my rant, let me just say one thing – Bollywood will never understand terrorism. And this includes everyone who has ever put a fake beard on a Mumbai-wallah, stuck him with an artificial AK machine and made him shout racial slurs from atop a snow covered mountain whilst lacing it with apt sentiments towards his Almighty.

This includes every producer who thinks the logic of ‘I am a terrorist! Please love me!’ will work well if the aforementioned ‘terrorist’ happens to be one of Bollywood’s beloved ’superstars’. This also includes movie going audience who are constantly mislead by showing them a life overseas that, well, just isn’t true.

The showcasing of ‘gora angrez log’ as mean and racially stereotypical people who are always out to gun down the minorities is just plain pathetic. This, because over the last decade at least a fourth of India’s working crowd has been abroad and knows first hand that this is a giant load of horse manure.

Now that that’s been said, let us focus on yet another ‘let us sympathize with the plight of an autistic Muslim boy who later on becomes a target of post 9/11 anti-Muslim hysteria’ formulaic nonsense that is ready to be delivered from the ‘Johar Think Tank’.

I have obviously not seen the movie but trust me – and I speak from experience – it will be yet another loud affair with Kajol screaming her eyes out in every emotional scene (excerpts of which already exist in the teaser), SRK hamming in a performance that is clearly based on minimal research about autistic people (just a mindless head bob, insipidly delivered lines and empty spaced out looks should do, right?), a few scenes showcasing the ‘horror’ that the American administration is and of course, a few well placed song and dance sequences that keep the movie ‘entertaining’. Jee-zus!

The first thing all movie makers in our land should learn about terrorism is the value of silence. Silence before the act is committed and a longer one after. In an Indian movie, as I am quite aware, the last thing you can expect is a scene filled with silent brilliance. So how can we possibly look forward to the silent tears a mother shed when her child was a victim of 9/11? How can we even fathom the quiet grief of a stiff faced NYPD officer saluting his friends who died trying to save lives on that fateful day?

What value can we attach to the young empty eyes of kids who lost their parents on that tragic morning? Nothing. Why? Because we just don’t know how to. Actually we don’t even care about it since all we need is a movie mouthing a cliche that has already been mouthed by a dozen mouths before. Add in the distraction of a popular on/offscreen couple and presto! We have a hit.

If there is one thing we, the Indian movie making factory, can do – is shout about terrorism every other Friday even as the entire world is trying so hard to move on from it. Be it in the fiasco called ‘Kurbaan’ or the joke called ‘New York’ – we will continue to use it as a backdrop to tell our love issshtories and sing our cute songs.
Painful. Just plain painful.

We will continue to glorify the Indian characters in our movies while ensuring that every American is portrayed as a bumbling wooden faced caricature only meant to mouth dialogs written by some juvenile sitting in some A/C room in Juhu. We will keep on churning out potboilers by using news articles from almost a decade ago.

We will continue undermining the importance of sensitivity when such Herculean tragedies take place. We will, always, fail to capture life overseas as it really is. Of this, I am a 100% certain. If you don’t live and work there, you just don’t know. Period.

I beg of you, O! Great Indian Film Makers, STOP! Please stop making a fool of yourselves, and more importantly we the people, by talking about things you don’t completely understand. Please stop using global terror attacks as an excuse to tell us how sorry we should feel about those who were the cause for it and those who, invariably Indians again, were the victims.

Please stop using American looking props for people and continue showing them (who were also real victims of 9/11) as folks who have nothing else to do but stop every moron who comes their way calling himself ‘Khan’. Puh-leez – STOP!

And as for Mr. Johar’s attempt – well. I am sure it will still be a hit thanks to the millions of star crazy fans of SRK. I am sure it will still rake in our hard earned money thanks to people’s craving to watch the SRK-Kajol ‘magic’ once more. I am certain it will still be giving 4+ out of 5 reviews by leading pro-SRK websites and yes, it will still be called another ‘glorious feather’ in SRK’s cap. But all this will happen without acknowledging what terrorism does to its victim and how painful it is to live with a tragedy like that.

A hit movie? Perhaps. But for all the wrong reasons. And since one of those reasons was created by us, the clueless audience, it would only be apt to say ‘My name is clueless’ before walking in to watch yet another train wreck from Bollywood.

Of course, I honestly also hope I am wrong about all of this. Nothing would please me more this time around.

Posted by Shashi Krishna