ওয়াশিংটন বাংলা রেডিও Washington Bangla Radio USA

"For more than half of the film's nearly three-hour running time, the cinematic cross-pollination is delightful. But even if the dialogue weren't primarily in Hindi, the film's sensibility would seem foreign to American multiplexes. As the story becomes increasingly nutty — that is, increasingly Bollywood — My Name Is Khan is likely to lose all but the most sympathetic viewers.

The man who delivers the title phrase, again and again, is Rizvan Khan, an Indian Muslim played winningly by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. A whiz with mechanical devices, Rizvan is brilliant but painfully anxious; he doesn't like loud noises, the color yellow or being touched. Only his doting mama is allowed to hug him.

Mom teaches Rizvan many things, but one lesson is crucial to his later adventures: Despite hostility between Hindus and Muslims, there is no essential difference between them. There are only two kinds of people, she tells him — good and bad.

After their mother dies, younger brother Zakir brings Rizvan to San Francisco. His new sister-in-law, a psychologist, promptly diagnoses Rizvan as having Asperger's syndrome.

Improbably, Zakir presses the childlike Rizvan into service as a salesman for his beauty products line. But Rizvan succeeds at the job, thanks to his prodigious memory and charming inability to tell a lie.

Rizvan also sells himself to one of his clients, the supernaturally accepting hairdresser Mandira (the radiant Kajol Devgan, a frequent Khan co-star). She's a Hindu and divorced with a young son, but Rizvan can tell she's one of the good people. Their romance is both implausible and enchanting.

The couple marries, moves to the suburbs and lives happily for years. Then Sept. 11 happens, life in the U.S. becomes harsher for South Asians, and the movie shifts to tear-jerking mode."

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