I watched My Name is Khan yesterday in the theatre. This was the 1st movie I watched in a theatre in Lagos.....why...I think SRK movies deserve to be watched in theatres :) I do not want to review this movie in this blog, I wanted to share something totally different on the same.
The movie is about SRK (of course), who is autistic (he has asperger's syndrome, which I guess in simple language means autism). Now being autistic, besides the standard learning disabilities, SRK's Rizwan, cannot express his emotions as 'non autistic' people do. He also repeats what he overhears, without knowing whether it is legal/politically/morally correct. (like he repeats abuses about Hindus, that he overhears his neighbours saying)
As an adult, Rizwan repeats only the routine stuff he hears, such as benefits of beauty products, history of the city, negatives of mobile phone usage, medical etc. For other things, he has a simple yardstick, good or bad, white and black......there are no grey areas in his mind. So, someone who wants to kill others....is bad; and innocent in trouble.....is of course good! Simple right?
It's this yardstick that makes him a such good at heart person, a wonderful friend to his step son, a loving husband, makes him famous......makes him meet the President. AND, he gives the message, that there are only 2 demarcations....good and bad. When innocent lives are at stake, either being killed or being trained to kill, its most definitely in the 'black area'. (he does this without being able to express emotions normally)
In Rizwan's mind, there are no grey areas, which make one recount the past victimization, humiliation and pain suffered; the reasons for the current state of living etc.....and hence, justify it as 'white'. There should actually be no scope for such a grey area, when it comes to killing innocent lives!
I wondered how come this autistic guy learnt such an important demarcation and applied it to such a life changing situation. This got me back to the start of the movie, where Rizwan's mother teaches him that there are just good or bad people....who are irrespective of religion. Given that Rizwan would have taken time and effort to learn anything, she could have chosen not to teach him this; I am also sure it would not have been as easy as depicted in the movie. But she did make that effort and was successful.
That's when I started thinking that yes, actually a mother can achieve a lot, by teaching good values at a younger age. I mean, if someone who is autistic can learn this so well, and bring about a change, there should be no problem at all for 'not autistic' children .
At a different point of time, I remember having told my son, that Britishers used to torture Indians a lot, they took away our money, kept us in jails and all that. After many days, when he heard the word Britisher, he immediately repeated (Rizwan style)......"Britishers are very chi chi (bad) people, they used to torture Indians a lot".....and (not in Rizwan style)...."If I meet Britishers, I will kick them hard!!!!"
I realized that I could fester this thought in my son, till he started to hate them, plot revenge on them (sounds like a Hindi movie right?).....or at least have racist feelings. But, I chose to tell him all the good things Britishers had done for us, like the Railways, governing style, education etc. And, tell him that all these things happened in the past, with different people, by different people.
Imagine, if all mothers taught their children what Rizwan's mother taught him? What we could all achieve?
Ciao
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