THE DIARY OF Z

Four days after I first watched Taare Zameen Par, i went to PVR and watched it again by default. Here is what I felt during the course of the film:

1. I cried on three occasions, exactly when Aamir cries on screen. And this was exactly how it went when I watched the film for the first time, too!

2. I thought Aamir had lessened the impact of the first half by concentrating on dyslexia in the second half, and not on how some children just don’t like to study the usual subjects. Upon second viewing, i don’t think it lessened the impact at all. In fact, because of dyslexia, Aamir could romp home the point that children suffering from this can be brought into the mainstream. Also, Aamir was able to tear down his protagonist’s ‘duffer’ image with the ammunition of dyslexia. Otherwise, he would have landed in a moral dilemma: are schools good or bad for children.

3. I felt the first half was quite long and painfully delightful (quite a feat!) the first time round. But this time, i felt it was short and someone had done some very crisp editing where all the boring bits are taken out. And where some seemed to be separate sequences, he’s done a mosaic and inserted them in the song sequences itself. Succinct thinking.

4. Though I wasn’t a duffer at school, i could still relate to the protagonist because Aamir the director takes us inside the mind of 9-year-old Ishaan Awasthi. Close-ups of the puddle in front of his classroom window, swinging on the gate, seeing alphabets dancing in his book… they all make you feel one with him. There’s so much empathy created in his every naughty act, be it bringing his eyes together when his mother says, ‘Ishaan, concentrate!’ to scowling at his father when his mother calls off his dad’s bluff that he’s leaving home because of his bad showing at school.

5. I thought there is room for improvement, particularly in the second half. But on repeat viewing, i felt the film was good as it was, because i felt the film was viewed, reviewed and revised a million times by the perfectionist Aamir, before it made the final cut.

6. Aamir’s idea of getting Ram Madhvani to direct the song ‘Bheja Kum’ which scored on photography and sophistication that you come to expect from TV commercials, was a great way of infusing some excitement into the frames. Similarly, showing Pandey’s documentary on children when the credits roll at the end was a masterstroke. By this, Aamir is saying that Ishaan could be anyone, a Chinese, a Nepali, a rich or a poor child because Ishaan belongs to just one age: Innocence.

7. On a working day, i saw several people dragging themselves out of bed to watch the 10am show at PVR. Some collegegoers were heard saying, “I know many guys like Ishaan who had the same problem man, and i thought they were just dumb!” If the film was an eye-opener to them, their comments were an eye-opener to me.

8. The distributors problem with multiplex owners over TZP and Welcome has helped TZP atleast at all the PVRs in the country at the expense of Welcome. Take my case. I had gone to see Welcome at PVR in the morning, but at the ticket window, i realised there was only one show of Welcome at 10pm. So the man behind the counter handed me a ticket of TZP instead saying, ‘I have only one ticket left.’ With no other option, I bought it… and didn’t regret!

It tugs at your heartstrings. It makes you reach for the tissues. It makes you laugh. It makes you happy. And you go back home with a lesson for life. That’s the remarkable effect of Aamir Khan’s new film.

Taare Zameen Par celebrates good cinema and at the same time, takes joy in rebelling against every prevailing idiom in the film industry. No flashy sets, no out-of-context songs, no item girls, no distracting side actors who come in to provide comic relief. TZP is a no-nonsense film that makes its way straight to your heart and also stimulates the mind.

Taare Zameen Par isn’t loud and melodramatic. And yet, it manages to keep your tear glands working all through the film, during happy times and poignant moments. It’s a film that tries to take measured steps to make a fervent call for individualism in a society that trips on herd mentality. For a college student, this translates to opting for careers in engineering, medicine or management. For a primary school student, it’s about obtaining A+ grades in all the subjects, except art&craft, sports and other ‘extra curricular’ activities. The problem is precisely this. Streams like Art & Craft and sports are treated as ‘extra curricular’ when they are just as alive and kicking as any other career. In fact, there are more unemployed engineers, doctors and MBA-grads because of this herd mentality leading to a problem of plenty - too many professional graduates and too few jobs. If only, they had followed their heart and did what they do best, then they would have either pioneered a new idiom in employment or taken a job that’s least sought after but most fulfilling to them.

This is the beauty of TZP. The film might be about a dyslexic child who sees mirror images of alphabets and thereby not distinguish an ‘L’ from a ‘7’. But what it teaches you is a lot more. It teaches the teachers that they she should stop treating their students as ‘kids’ and drown out the creativity lying un-used within them by refusing to recognise their individuality. Conformism is killing ‘free’ society. And it is this that is brought out oh-so-beautifully by art teacher Nikumbh (Aamir) and his third standard student Ishaan (Darsheel Safary) who has a face off with his incompetent father and an equally inept school of teachers. It takes a refined teacher like Nikumbh to recognise the inadequacies of Ishaan and help him fit into mainstream society. If not for Nikumbh, Ishaan would have been sent to a special school because of his dyslexia (something that the teachers misconstrued as a sign of him being a duffer and a no good wastrel). And that would mean the end of him and his fantasy world.

Thank you, Aamir for taking us back into our childhood and making us aware of the child within us. Hopefully, this should prevent us from viewing the young ones as ‘just kids’ and actually try to understand them better and usher in a new brave world where individuality becomes the essence of living. Where every job gets equal importance, and where every creativity is given proper encouragement. These are indeed the real signs of human progress.

Thankfully, with Taare Zameen Par, it has already begun.

Just came back after watching TZP and can’t help the eyes welling up everytime i recall the story of a dyslexic child. There are many memorable scenes in the film. It’s a must-watch film that should be made tax-free across the country pronto, so that everyone gets to see the film. Every school should organise free viewings of this film to both teachers and students. And every parent and young adult who will soon be a parent, must watch this film. It’s got soul. And oodles of it. A more detailed review will follow soon. This is only a curtain raiser.
While I was coming back from the movie hall, i made one resolution: to buy the original DVD and not go the pirated route. Aamir has put in his soul for this film. Atleast I can pay him back in this manner.

Bravo, Aamir! You make us all proud! May the power be with you! Always!