Karan Johar trains lens on slums with `Slumdog` kid

Mumbai, April 21: He is known for making designer films, but Karan Johar recently shot some key sequences of his "My Name Is Khan" in a slum here with "Slumdog Millionaire" kid Tanay Cheda.

Karan said Tanay, who played the `middle` Jamal in the multiple Oscar-winning film, made Shah Rukh Khan`s childhood look convincing for the film. The director chose him to play young Shah Rukh because of not only his facial likeness to the star but also Tanay`s instant connectivity with the Mumbai slums and thereafter the Western audience. "Tanay is exceptionally talented. He was able to imbibe Shah Rukh`s character traits and use them to make SRK`s childhood look convincing," said Karan. The scenes with Tanay were shot in Borivali along with actress Zarina Wahab, who plays Shah Rukh`s mother in the movie. The director now intends to cast Tanay as junior SRK whenever required, much in the way that Master Mayur played the young Amitabh Bachchan in a series of films. Though the take-off point for "My Name Is Khan" is 9/11, not a single shot is taken in New York. The film is set in Los Angeles and San Francisco - two of the most expensive cities in the US for shooting. While Karan Johar`s production of Rensil de Silva`s Kareena Kapoor-Saif Ali Khan film on terrorism will have Philadelphia masquerading as New York, his own directorial take on terrorism and the isolation of the working-class Muslim has gone to two US cities. Karan shot in LA earlier this year and leaves for San Francisco in May for a 40-day schedule. IANS