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| Man in the Middle |
Here are his thoughts and reflections and the issues he and his family face each day when controversies arise.
Read on.
I am an actor. Time does not frame my days with as
much conviction as images do. Images rule my life. Moments and memories imprint
themselves on my being in the form of the snapshots that I weave into my
expression. The essence of my art is the ability to create images that resonate
with the emotional imagery of those watching them. I am a Khan. The name itself
conjures multiple images in my mind too-a strapping man riding a horse, his
reckless hair flowing from beneath a turban tied firm around his head. His
ruggedly handsome face marked by weathered lines and a distinctly large nose. A
stereotyped extremist-no dance, no drink, no cigarette tipping off his lips, no
monogamy, no blasphemy. A fair silent face beguiling a violent fury smoldering
within. A streak that could even make him blow himself up in the name of his
God.
Then there is the image of me being shoved into a
back room of a vast American airport named after an American president-another
parallel image of the president being assassinated by a man named Lee not a
Muslim thankfully nor Chinese, as some might imagine. I urgently shove the
image of the room out of my head. Some stripping, frisking and many questions
later, I am given an explanation of sorts “Your name pops up on our system we
are sorry”. “So am I ” I think to myself “Now can I have my underwear back
please. ” Then there is the image I most see-the one of me in my own country
being acclaimed as a megastar adored and glorified. My fans mobbing me with
love and apparent adulation. I am a Khan. I could say I fit into each of these
images. I could be a strapping six feet something — ok something minus about
three inches at least though I don’t know much about horse-riding. A horse once
galloped off with me flapping helplessly on it and I have had a “no
horse-riding” clause embedded in my contracts ever since. I am extremely
muscular between my ears. I am often told by my kids and I used to be fair too
but now I have a perpetual tan or as I like to call it ‘olive hue’ — though
deep in the recesses of my armpits, I can still find the remains of a fairer
day. I am handsome under the right kind of light and I really do have a
“distinctly large” nose. It announces my arrival in fact peeking through the doorway
just before I make my megastar entrance. But my nose notwithstanding my name
means nothing to me unless I contextualise it. Stereotyping and contextualising
is the way of the world we live in a world in which definition has become
central to security. We take comfort in defining phenomena objects and people —
with a limited amount of knowledge and along known parameters. The
predictability that naturally arises from these definitions makes us feel
secure within our own limitations.
We create little image boxes of our own. One such
box has begun to draw its lid tighter and tighter at present. It is the box
that contains an image of my religion in millions of minds. I encounter this
tightening of definition every time moderation is required to be publicly
expressed by the Muslim community in my country. Whenever there is an act of
violence in the name of Islam, I am called upon to air my views on it and
dispel the notion that by virtue of being a Muslim I condone such senseless
brutality I am one of the voices chosen to represent my community in order to
prevent other communities from reacting to all of us as if we were somehow
colluding with or responsible for the crimes committed in the name of a
religion that we experience entirely differently from the perpetrators of these
crimes. I sometimes become the inadvertent object of political leaders who
choose to make me a symbol of all that they think is wrong and unpatriotic
about Muslims in India. There have been occasions when I have been accused of
bearing allegiance to our neighbouring nation rather than my own country — this
even though I am an Indian whose father fought for the freedom of India Rallies
have been held where leaders have exhorted me to leave my home and return to
what they refer to as my “original homeland” Of course I politely decline each
time citing such pressing reasons as sanitation words at my house preventing me
from taking the good shower that’s needed before undertaking such an extensive
journey. I don’t know how long this excuse will hold though I gave my son and
daughter names that could pass for generic pan-Indian and pan-religious ones
Aryan and Suhana. The Khan has been bequeathed by me so they can’t really
escape it. I pronounce it from my epiglottis when asked by Muslims and throw
the Aryan as evidence of their race when non-Muslims enquire. I imagine this
will prevent my offspring from receiving unwarranted eviction orders and random
fatwas in the future. It will also keep my two children completely confused.
Sometimes they ask me what religion they belong to and like a good Hindi movie
hero. I roll my eyes up to the sky and declare philosophically “You are an
Indian first and your religion is humanity” or sing them an old Hindi film
ditty “Tu Hindu banega na Musalmaan banega — insaan ki aulaad hai insaan
banega” set to Gangnam Style. None of this informs them with any clarity it
just confounds them some more and makes them deeply wary of their father.
In the land of the freed where I have been invited
on several occasions to be honored, I have bumped into ideas that put me in a
particular context. I have had my fair share of airport delays for instance. I
became so sick of being mistaken for some crazed terrorist who coincidentally
carries the same last name as mine that I made a film subtly titled My Name is
Khan and I am not a terrorist to prove a point. Ironically, I was interrogated
at the airport for hours about my last name when I was going to present the
film in America for the first time. I wonder at times whether the same
treatment is given to everyone whose last name just happens to be McVeigh as in
Timothy. I don’t intend to hurt any sentiments but truth be told the aggressor
and taker of life follows his or her own mind. It has to nothing to do with a
name a place or his her religion. It is a mind that has its discipline its own
distinction of right from wrong and its own set of ideologies. In fact, one
might say it has its own “religion”. This religions has nothing to do with the
ones that have existed for centuries and been taught in mosques or churches.
The call of the azaan or the words of the pope have no bearing on this person’s
soul. His soul is driven by the devil. I for one refuse to be contextualised by
the ignorance of his ilk. I am a Khan. I am neither six-feet-tall nor handsome.
I am modest though nor am I a Muslim who looks down on other religions. I have
been taught my religion by my six-foot-tall handsome Pathan ‘Papa’ from
Peshawar where his proud family and mine still resides. He was a member of the
no-violent Pathan movement called Khudai Khidamatgaar and a follower of both
Gandhiji and Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan who was also known as the Frontier Gandhi.
My first learning of Islam from him was to respect
women and children and to uphold the dignity of every human being. I learnt
that the property and decency of others their points of view their beliefs
their philosophies and their religions were due as much respect as my own and
ought to be accepted with an open mind. I learnt to believe in the power and
benevolence of Allah and to be gentle and kind to my fellow human beings; to
give of myself to those less privileged than me and to live a life full of
happiness, joy, laughter and fun without impinging on anybody else’s freedom to
live in the same way. So I am a Khan but no stereotyped image is factored into
my idea of who I am. Instead the living of my life has enabled me to be deeply
touched by the love of millions of Indians. I have felt this love for the last
20 years regardless of the fact that my community is a minority within the
population of India. I have been showered with love across national and
cultural boundaries from Suriname to Japan and Saudi Arabia to Germany places
where they don’t even understand my language. They appreciate what I do for
them as an entertainer — that’s all. My life has led me to understand and
imbibe that love is a pure exchange untempered by definition and unfettered by
the narrowness of limiting ideas. If each one of us allowed ourselves the
freedom to accept and return love in its purity,we would need no image boxes to
hold up the walls of our security. I believe that I have been blessed with the
opportunity to experience the magnitude of such a love but I also know that its
scale is irrelevant. In our own small ways simply as human beings, we can
appreciate each other for how touch our lives and not how our different
religions or last names define us. Beneath the guise of my superstardom I am an
ordinary man. My Islamic stock does not conflict with that of my Hindu wife’s.
The only disagreements I have with Gauri concerns the color of the walls in our
living room and not about the locations of the walls demarcating temples from
mosques in India. We are bringing up a daughter who pirouettes in a leotard and
choreographs her own ballets. She sings western songs that confound my
sensibilities and aspires to be an actress. She also insists on covering her
head when in a Muslim nation that practises this really beautiful and much
misunderstood tenet of Islam.
Our son’s linear
features proclaim his Pathan pedigree although he carries his own rather gentle
mutations of the warrior gene. He spends all day either pushing people aside at
rugby, kicking some butt at Tae Kwon Do or eliminating unknown faces behind
anonymous online gaming handles around the world with The Call of Duty video
game. And yet he firmly admonishes me for getting into a minor scuffle at the
cricket stadium in Mumbai last year because some bigot make unsavoury remarks
about me being a Khan.
The four of us make up a motley representation
of the extraordinary acceptance and validation that love can foster when
exchanged within the exquisiteness of things that are otherwise defined
ordinary. For I believe our religion is an extremely personal choice not a
public proclamation of who we are. It’s as person as the spectacles of my
father who passed away some 20 years ago. Spectacles that I hold onto as my
most prized and personal possession of his memories, teachings and of being a
proud Pathan I have never compared those with my friends who have similar
possessions of their parents or grandparents, I have never said my father’s
spectacles are better than your mother’s saree, So why should we have this
comparison in the matter of religion which is as personal and prized a belief
as the memories of your elders, Why should not the love we share be the last
word in defining us instead of the last name, It doesn’t take a superstar to be
able to give love.It just takes a heart and as far as I know there isn’t a
force on this earth that can deprive anyone of theirs. I am a Khan and that’s
what it has meant being one despite the stereotype images that surround me. To
be a Khan has been to be loved and love back — that the promise that virgins
wait for me somewhere on the other side
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