Omi's Korner: Chapter 4 - I wanted to close this issue yesterday..

..but it seems things are getting worse over in Maharashtra. Read that multiplexes and single screen cinemas are canceling the opening of My Name is Khan due to severe violence of the Shiv Sainiks (see, I'm a Malaysian and even I know what a Sainik is now).

For those who still think Shah Rukh should apologize to the Shiv Sena, two things I want you guys to clarify: 1. What is the portion in his statement over at "India Questions" in NDTV should he apologize for? (or have you even watched it at all? If you haven't, then SHUT UP!), 2. Tell him the exact words as a way of retracting any portion of his statement that you think he has to say.

What is happening to MNIK in Mumbai has gone way beyond Shah Rukh himself now. I doubt anything he says from hereon will change anything. Now the Shiv Sena is trying to ruin his reputation by saying that he actually wanted to meet Bal Thakeray to apologize but was stopped by the Congress from doing so. Tell me, what idiots will believe this piece of shizzy reporting?

I have read many things on Shiv Sena. It's like a 3-day crash course on Indian politics for me. Wish I paid this much attention to Malaysian politics, but ours is more subtle and covert (too many read-between-the-lines stuff, too taxing for my smallish brain) while Indian politics is so in-your-face, so the latter is easier to digest and formulate an opinion on. Well, that's my opinion after the crash course anyway.

I completely understand what Shah Rukh meant by the "non-issue" now. Actually, the light dawned on me after reading this speech by a Sainik (source):

“Why should Amitabh be spared? If Saheb [Bal Thackeray] orders us, we will protest against him, too.”

That question, uttered so matter-of-factly, eerily invokes in my mind images of Frankenstein.. that big dumb physically powerful monster who would do anything to please its master. Does it matter that Shah Rukh said anything at all? It sounds like, whenever this monstrous entity is ordered to destroy anyone or anything, it will not inquire on the why and the what. Far be it for me to look down on how other state or other country should be governed, I mean.. we do have the scenario of goons in the payroll of politicians here too, I'm not that naive to believe everything is hunky dory in my country..  but what's happening in Mumbai, actually..the entire Maharashtra, I have no word for it. That everybody seems so powerless is completely beyond my understanding.

We chose your leaders. We are partly at fault for what's unfolding in our respective state, our respective nation. To sit in front of our TV monitors and go "Tsk, tsk..what is the world coming to," at the sight of goons vandalizing public property on the instigation of leaders we ourselves have elected in the previous election is irresponsibility of the highest degree. Putting the blame entirely on the shoulder of one person is the height of indolence. Today the goons have stopped you from going to watch a movie you've excitedly waited many months for. What will they stop you from doing (or even saying) tomorrow?

The power of the people is in the decisions each of us makes regarding our rights as a countryman. Exercise it prudently.

His Name Is Khan (And It's One You Might Know)

The audio on the page contains the complete interview. You can download it.

Source 

He's the biggest movie star in the world. Because even if you never heard of Shah Rukh Khan, a billion people in India — and more across the Middle East, Africa and beyond — certainly have. He's the biggest draw in the outrageously oversized films that come from the Hindi-film industry often called Bollywood.

How big a draw is that? More people around the world watch Shah Rukh Khan than Meryl Streep or Brad Pitt. Maybe Meryl Streep and Brad Pitt. His film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, made in 1995, is still playing in one Mumbai cinema.

"In India, the films are not looked upon just as entertainment," Khan says. "They're a way of life."

And Shah Rukh Khan has made them his life. At age 44, he owns a production company and is host of India's version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. And he keeps starring in Bollywood productions — films that get shown everywhere from remote Indian villages to multiplexes in New York.

In some ways, that broad distribution requires a certain style of filmmaking.

"The idea is that you have to some way make a film that appeals to my 90-year-old grandmother and to the 9-year-old kid," Khan says. "So it's like a cabaret. Like, I have a couple of films written by American guys, and I bring them back to Mumbai, make them sit down. And then I say: 'OK, here's the song, and here's the mother.' 'But there's no mother in the film.' And I say, 'There has to be a mother in the film.' "

In movies that commonly last three hours, Khan might howl his lines, with his hair flying everywhere. He may dance on the roof of a moving train. It comes with the territory.

"People talk about Bollywood being very kitsch," he acknowledges, "and just songs and dances, and over the top and colorful."

But in his latest production, being released in the U.S. Feb. 12, he's not doing anything quite that over the top. He plays a Muslim man with Asperger's syndrome who is driven after the events of Sept. 11 to constantly repeat a single explosive phrase:

"My name is Khan, and I'm not a terrorist."

From A Real-Life Horror, 'The Butterfly Effect' For Two Innocents

A Muslim star in a mostly Hindu country, Khan says he has always been interested in the challenge of starting from a real-life incident and weaving a fictional story around it.

"And there is an aspect of Islam that needs to be addressed now, otherwise this demarcation, this divide we keep on increasing," he says. "So I just thought we should have a message about a film with humanity. Just goodness."

In one way, Khan says, his character is speaking for millions of Muslims with that startling sentence.

Shah Rukh Khan and director Karan Johar on location

"Yes and no — because the line is actually very emotional," he says. "People who are autistic or have Asperger's have a compulsive behavior. He just gets this line in his head, and compulsively keeps saying, 'My name is Khan, and I'm not a terrorist.' And it's a more emotional thing."

The movie, he says, isn't really about Sept. 11, or about terrorism. It's a love story. It's about "the butterfly effect of an incident like this."

"That, you know, two people who are actually unrelated to an incident somewhere in the world and how their lives and their love changes, and gets completely thwarted."

Soon after he finished filming My Name is Khan, India's biggest film star almost found himself thwarted. On a visit to the United States, he was detained and questioned for two hours at U.S. immigration. The incident made front-page headlines across India.

"I didn't react to it as vehemently as I think everyone back home did," Khan says, "because I'm used to it. You know, my name is Khan, really. And I'm sent to the other side, which is OK. I don't make a big issue out of it."

Others were more offended, though Khan makes a joke of it now.

"The foreign minister in India said that, you know, we also are going to do the same to the Western world people when they come," Khan says. "So I said, 'Give me the chance to frisk Angelina Jolie if she comes to India, please. I should be the first one to try this.' "

'Our Fantasies Are Very Real'

My Name Is Khan isn't like most of Shah Rukh Khan's other films. Most of them, for one thing, are primarily secular in character — while most audiences might presume he's playing a Hindu character, that character's religion isn't central to the plot.

But Khan says it wasn't a particular risk for him to make a movie about an explicitly Muslim character.

"As far as the public is concerned, India is amazingly secular. I am a Muslim, but I am a leading star for the last 20 years, so if you just go by that, there is no issue ever.

"There are vested interests who will always bring that up to provoke people, which I guess keeps happening everywhere."

What the movie has in common with many Bollywood fantasies is this: Khan's character comes to America.

"I say this to everyone: Our fantasies are about earning a good living," he says. "Having maybe a car — not two. Getting an education for your kids. Our fantasies are not about getting to be president of the country, to sit in a rocket and go and break a meteor. Our fantasies are very real.

"As a matter of fact," he continues, "I find the Western cinema very fantastic. You've got aliens. And you've got things we don't know about. Blue creatures. You have Batman, you have Superman. I remember the first time I was here — someone was interviewing me in a hotel, and they said, 'Your films are such fantasies.'

"And I'm like, 'We are fantasies?' Our guys just want to sing and dance on the roads. Our guys just want to drive a big car. Our guys just want to come to America. You know, we don't want to go to Pandora. America is our Pandora."

Ok, I cracked. But how could I resist it when there's a fresh new 'mini' controversy right out of the oven!

One of the many articles I stumbled upon on the subject (not to mention several forum arguments against the machine.. but of course governments, in whichever country we're living in, are smarter than the people who've elected them and won't listen to any contradicting opinion)

As I have commented in a previous post.. Shah Rukh, the lovely star whom I love so much and who's so down-to-earth and humbleness itself.. has this great ability to generate controversy with the slightest remark. It's a curse! Or a blessing! Either way, the BAA is tripping all over itself to prove that Shah Rukh LIED in Wossy's show on the body scanner thing.

Yep, I can so totally see how the body scan CAN'T be "stored digitally nor distributed to anyone in any form". Right. Next, they'll call up Shah Rukh and ask him to clarify that there is no such incident and that it was all a BIG FAT LIE. Guys.. it's called a JOKE?! If Shah Rukh has truly autographed that thing, won't it be circulating the net by now? Come on.. us gals (and many of the guys, I bet) would trip over ourselves trying to download it. Those airport staff would have made millions of dollars from the sale.

(The fact that the BAA people're so nervous about it smells like something's burning in the kitchen. They'd better take better care of the buns next time)

Note: I think I need to install a new label/tag in my blog called "controversy". That label is becoming more and more a necessity as Shah Rukh's popularity gets bigger. I mean, it's not every movie star who can have the assurance of an entire state police to guard the security of the cinemas screening his film. What with it happening in the backdrop of several parties trying to gain visibility for the coming election, he is almost always at the right place & at the right time (or is it the opposite?) that it's eery when I think about it.