Jalaj P. Jha Technical & Miscellaneous Ramblings

Disabilities & Disorders Make a Great Movie

“My name is Khan”, Shahrukh Khan’s latest movie shows him as a person with Asperger’s Syndrome which makes it difficult for a person to interact socially and add other problems as phobia towards yellow color. If you have already viewed this movie just imagine how the movie would be if there was no Asperger’s Syndrome in the storyline and Shahrukh’s character was as healthy as anyone else. Imagine the scene where he gets detained at the Airport for security check, the scene where he first meets Mandira (played by Kajol), where he proposes her and all other scenes. Imagining that would not be difficult at all as Acting and facial expressions remains more or less same in all movies portraying a normal healthy person to the extent that Shahrukh’s own movie ‘Om Shanti Om’ laughs at it showing the protagonist’s two movies nominated for Filmfare awards having same ‘My name is Rahul…’ lines.

Disabilities and Disorders in characters give the actor chance to come out a with different performance, which also helps in pulling audience and at the same time also helps in increasing the length of the movie with details and circumstances around it. Let’s have a look at other movies that portrayed Disabilities and Disorders

DARR (1993)
Shahrukh Khan played a character who feels mentally and socially broken after the death of his mother whom he loved too much. He still feels his mother around him and is frequently seen talking with her over phone. He though talks well with any other person but shies when talking to his love interest Kiran and stammers when calling her name. His stammering ‘k.k..k..k...Kiran’ is still remembered even after 17 years. Shahrukh played similar character later in Anjaam which though was not a commercial success bagged him Filmfare award for best actor in villainous role.

PAA (2009)
Amitabh Bachchan plays a 12 year old boy suffering from Progeria due to which his physical growth runs 5-6 times faster making him look like 65 year old. Apart from the disorder the movie was in news as Amitabh was playing son of his real life son Abhishek Bachchan.

GHAJINI (2008)
Amir Khan played a rich character who falls in love with a girl who is later killed. He too gets severely injured and suffers from anterograde amnesia due to which he cannot remember anything past 15 minutes. Rest of the movie moves around his attempts to discover the killer and take revenge.

This movie gave Amir a chance to build body. His hair style porting short hair with operation stitch marks was aped by lots of his fans.

KOI MIL GAYA (2003)
What else would you need if you have a storyline of Steven Spielberg’s Extra Terrestrial and Special Effects aped from Independence Day, Songs and other masala of bollywood? Apparently nothing but when an Adult Hritik Roshan is meant to play a character played by a child in E.T. you either need to change the storyline or screen Hritik as a mentally retarded person. That’s Koi Mil Gaya! Hritik plays a mentally retarded person who suffered a blow when still in womb thus born retarded. Later he meets a creature from outer world who finally cures Hritik to enable him live a normal life. The movie was a huge success and Hritik’s style of dialog delivery is still remembered.

DOSTI (1964)
An emotional story of two friends one blind since birth and other crippled in an accident. This movie was a huge hit and still remembered for it’s heart touching songs ‘Jaanewalo zara..’, ‘Chahunga mein tujhe…’ and others. Incidentally this is the only Black & White movie that I watched on Big screen.

There are many more movies that I would love to add… may be save them for later