My name is Khan – Indian Cinema’s First Visual Grammar!

“My name is Khan,” drawls Shahrukh Khan, acting away, “Rizwan Khan”.  And off we go through a string of common narrative devices, ranging from the standard (medically troubled childhood) to the oddly specific (mothers delivering gnomic nuggets in adult life that serve as the story’s take-home message).

Every image in the film – be it the grimy streets of Mumbai, sparkling San Francisco, hurricane hit village of Wilhelmina, the secluded lonely places in Khan’s journey or the downtown America, is vibrant and memorable. It gives us a strong sense of the theme which is ‘good and bad’. The line of dialogue ‘My name is Khan and I’m not a terrorist’ has expressed the theme well. It becomes one of the most recognizable motifs in the film. This motif continues to occur throughout the entire film in the shape of events, dialogues and sound, helping the audience to focus on story elements.  We see an event in the beginning of the story where Rizwan’s mother Razia teaches him the basic difference between good and bad after he witnesses a violent scene outside his house, this theme continues as a motif throughout the story against many divisions – Normal and Autistic, American and Asian, Muslim and non-Muslim, Terrorist and Victims, Love and Hatred.

The film connects with the audiences on both descriptive and prescriptive

level portraying accurately and realistically how the lead character acts and reacts within a particular situation contrary to the ‘hero’ films where the hero rarely feels uncertainty or fear or lack of confidence (which all of us would probably feel in that same situation). Instead he acts out how we would like to be. All the while knowing it’s not really real. But Khan’s reactions seems so true that during the film you would say ‘that’s just how those guys would act’ ! His honest portrayal of an autistic guy, his disabilities, uncertainties and fears, restricted activities; everything from physical to psychological to emotional, all characteristics defines the expanded dimensions of his character.

Karen Johar has ‘physicalized’ the character of Rizwan with the universal and understandable theme of good and bad. The film capitalizes on every element of a standard narrative structure to achieve success.