New York is a 2009 Indian Hindi language spy thriller film directed by Kabir Khan and produced by Aditya Chopra, based on a script by lyricist Sandeep Shrivastava and a story by Chopra, with Visual Computing Labs, Tata Elxsi Ltd. handling the visual effects. The film stars John Abraham, Katrina Kaif, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Irrfan Khan & Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and tells a story about 3 friends studying at the fictional New York State University whose lives are changed by the September 11 attacks and its aftermath.
The film was shot simultaneously in Hindi and English and received highly positive reviews, with particular praise directed towards Kaif and Nitin Mukesh’s performances, which earned them nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor respectively at the 55th Filmfare Awards. The film was declared a super-hit at the box office, grossing Rs. 65 crores, which sums to Rs. 114 crores at present day.
In the United States in 2009, the FBI arrest Omar Aijaz, a young Muslim man originally from Delhi, India, after finding guns in the trunk of a taxi cab he owned. Omar is then taken into custody and interrogated by FBI Agent Roshan, also a Muslim man originally from South Asia who has been living in the United States for twenty years. Omar then discovers that he was set up by the FBI to force him to spy on a former college friend, Sameer “Sam” Sheikh, whom he has not seen in seven years and who the FBI believes is a terrorist. In the process, Omar discovers that Sam has married Maya, a mutual friend whom Omar had a crush on in university and finds out that Sam and Maya have a young son, Danyal.
Roshan orders Omar to tell him everything he knows about Sam. The film then flashes back to September 1999, when Omar begins his studies at the New York State University. He is befriended by his international student counselor Maya and learns that though she was born and raised in New York, she is fluent in Hindi because of her mother’s interest in Bollywood films. Omar also meets Sam, an American Muslim who is also fluent in Hindi due to the fact that his father is a professor of Indian studies. Over the next two years, all three become inseparable friends and gradually Omar falls in love with Maya. When Omar realises that she loves Sam, however, he distances himself from them both. Their carefree days end with the onset of the September 11 attacks, or 9/11.