Monday, December 24, 2007

Taare Zameen Par

After a hiatus, I watched two movies that left me wistful.They are Happy Days and Taare Zameen Par. This post is meant for the second one.

The caption of the movie "Every Child is special" is captivating.Unfortunately few identify their speciality.Thats a different issue.I want to post about it once I identify my speciality :).The picture influenced me a lot as I observed MR(Mentally Retarded) children closely at PAWMENCAP.

TZP revolves around eight-year-old boy Ishaan Nandkishore Awasthi (Darsheel Safari) . He is always interested in creative , artful things rather than boring things ;-) like language,math ( Yeah, I know that Math is interesting if it is taught by people like ShakuntalaDevi). Unfortunately his parents do not identify his problem. Every one thinks that he is dumb, duffer , idiot and what not. His father thinks that he is a incorrigible child and sends him off to a boarding school to straighten his behaviour. Poor man doesn't know the problem of the child let alone the solution.

Ishan is attached to his mom. He misses his home , his doting brother , his loving mom , his disciplinarian father.I think the song that is pictured at this situation left everyone
the theatre very tearful.The lyrics of the first few lines are :

"Main kabhi batlaata nahin
Par andhere se darta hoon main Maa!
Yu toh main dikhlaata nahin
Teri parwaah karta hoon main Maa!
Tujhe sab hain pataa hain na Maa!
Tijhe sab hain pataa..... meri Maa! "
--HatsOff to Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Prasoon Joshi for making such a beautiful song.

Same story punishment,absent-mindedness and so on repeats with the boy even in the boarding school. One day a new art teacher starts taking classes.He also works withTulips school for MR children.Who is he? None other than Ram Shankar Nikumb ( Aamir Khan) . His style of instruction is quite different . It trickles imaginative thinking in the children. By that time Ishaan was totally frustrated and diffident . He refuses to do even the things he is good at.

Nikumb finds that the boy is dyslexic.That's why the boy always felt that the alphabets are dancing and was not able to read and write properly. He visits his home and is startled by seeing his contemplative drawings.He pleads his parents and the principal to keep encouraging the boy and starts working on him. He quotes examples of Einstein , Leonardo da Vinci who faced similar problems to build his self-confidence. He employs innovative methods to solve his tripleR(Reading,wRiting and ARithmetic) problem.Thanks to the efforts of his teacher , slowly the boy shows progress .

Nikumb organizes a drawing competition open for students and also teachers.The boy wins the first prize and Nikumb wins the second.The year book of the school contains these pictures on the front and the back covers respectively. The movie ends with the summer holidays :)

Every child faces such problems may not be similar or may be as intense as michell in BLACK movie.Lucky are those who find Nikumbs or Sahays(BLACK) .Here I would like to mention
a page in my memory book.Till IInd standard I was dull and recluse.I used to go to school along with a worker in my father's office.The teacher complained to him that it is waste of his energy in briging me to school as I am hopeless.I was used to be punished almost regularly ;-).It was actually affecting my self-confidence.I was shy and was becoming more and more shy.My mom was broken.She immediately went to school to resolve the issue.All the teachers flooded my mom with all possible complaints.My mother (as all mothers) is very much confident about her son.She addressed the concerns of each teacher one by one. A teacher complained that I dont
read when ever I was asked to do so. I used to drag the patience of the teacher by refusing to read.My mother asked me to do so.To the surprise of every one , I did it perfectly fine.Every teacher was awe struck. I did what I never did :-) This issue was taken to the notice of even the principal.From that day onwards I was famous in the school.

In reality it is rare to find teachers like Nikumb or Sahay who are so much dedicated. So parents must take that role like my mom or who else will help the poor child?