Take on(e) Tare Zameen Par

While trying to sleep yesterday after watching TZP, I was wondering if I had Dyslexia. The symptoms I had were similar to Ishan, I tend to interchange while writing words that sounded similar like there and their, whether and weather etc. That I also write the number eight in the exact opposite way (mirror image) of how my classmates did was another contentious argument in my mind.

The movie has been in theaters for a while now and my friends including Chennaites who saw it had only good opinions. Being an Aamir Khan starrer-director, I concluded it to be another typical Bollywood flick. But it turned out to be a miscalculation! The story of TZP is about a dyslexic child Ishaan Awasthi who finally overcomes this with the help of a teacher Ram Shankar Nikumbh.

The subject it handles is one which is usually taken up by the art film directors (and not definitely of a usual mainstream Bollywood cinema). As every one already knows, Aamir chose to direct the movie when he was not happy with the scenes shot by the debutant script writer of the movie. The movie may not have had this genuineness in treatment and wouldn’t have had helped to create the awareness it has done if not for Aamir. In fact I felt the second part after interval was no less than a documentary on Dyslexia, had it not been for the comic strips with the teachers in the school. It was these comic caricatures in the movie that kept the spirits high for the film which otherwise has a subtle feel about it, even the songs are tuned to this mood.


Apart from those momentous silly insinuations that I had about me being dyslexic (which was probably an attempt by my subconscious mind to place me beside the stalwarts mentioned in the movie with learning disabilities: ), Tare Zameen Par confirmed my belief that Aamir Khan is the one of the best actors in the present Bollywood. He chose to direct a movie when it would have been easier for him to act in another flick with a song picturising all the Bollywood actors and actresses alive. And to my amazement, TZP collections are nothing short compared to the well marketed multi-starrer.