Taare Zamin par

And I pretended there was something in my eye. Yesterday I went for a movie with couple of friends, Taare zamin par. The impact of the movie on my emotional side was immense. For all those who know me well will agree I don’t get sentimental atleast in the case of movies but this made me release I might have 6 tear glands than the regular 4.
The movie stars Darsheel Safari shown as a 8-9 year old boy named Eshaan Avasthi who has the problem to read and write. When he looks at his books the letters seem to dance, the things that he writes are actually mirror images of what he means. He’s misunderstood to be a dumb kid in this competitive world where writing byhearted answers gets you marks in your exam, he cant understand the way a normal kid can and hence hes termed abnormal. Nobody thought that maybe he was above it all. Maybe his level of thinking is no where compared to ours, only because his ways of learning and understanding are not conventional.
In this movie Eshaan Avasti suffers from Dyslexia, it’s a difficulty to read and write. This is usually misunderstood to be the childs mischief, laziness or dislike towards books. Now can a 9 yr old child like something he doesn’t understand or cannot associate with?. He likes painting in the movie that being his forte. He paints not what he sees but what he imagines. In the movie there is this pop math quiz in which the 1st question is 3*9 now in English its written as 3 into 9. Eshaan imagines that hes heading some space challenge and he has to put the earth(3) into Pluto(9) that retains earth and so his answer is 3. Eshaan doesn’t only face difficulty at school but also at home where his parents want him to be like his extraordinary elder brother who comes 1st in every subject in school. He even gets beaten up by the boys in his colony. The warm relationship between his mother and him touched my heart the most. His father too is a nice guy but is stern and worried about his sons future due to which he fails to recognize the problem his kid has. The brother Yohaan I must say is a very supportive boy who has his brothers back for anything. This scene when Eshaan bunks school and wanders the streets alone and begs his brother to write a sick leave note, Eshaan is shown very loyal as well when caught by his father,he doesn’t tell on his brother. After this fiasco his parents decide to send him to a boarding school in Panchgani. Eshaan begs and cries but his father makes his mind up, his concerned mother has no say and Eshaan is send away. The situation at this school isn’t any better to what he had faced in his old school. He gets punished and mocked at even here, only difference is he makes a friend Rajan Damodaran. Who tries to raise his confidence levels but after all the things Eshaan faces, the poor kid reaches his ever time low.
He has no confidence left in him and he cries out saying why me, why am I like this, why am I so dumb. The only thing to cheer him up, his parents also cant make it to meet him one weekend. The child is broken and keeps to himself, doesn’t talk, he even stops to do what he does best, paint. Then theres a source of inspiration in his life, a temporary art teacher Ram Shankar Nikumbh played by Aamir Khan. Nibumbh is a free spirited, jolly and fun loving man. Hes very good with children and teaches in a school for special children. Hes got an unconventional style of teaching. He communicates with children through song and dance. On his first day he asks the children to draw anything they wanted to unlike the old teacher. The children immediately click to his ways of teaching, but Eshaan does nothing. He by now has lost hope. Nikumb notices a few things about Eshaan that concern him, he looks through Eshaans books and recognizes a pattern of mistakes. He gets alarmed and reaches Bombay to tell Eshaans parents about the ordeal his sons been going through all this time. He explains the cause being dyslexia, his inability to do simple things that normal children can do at ease are really difficult for him. His father fails to understand this and thinks Nikumbh suggests that Eshaan is mentally retarded. Nikumbh the next day talks about all the dyslexic geniuses . Einstein, Picasso, Edison, Neil Diamond, and tells the class that even they suffered the difficulty to read and write and the rest was history. Eshaan now starts to believe that hes not alone, and that even hes capable of something. Later he revials to Eshaan that he himself had the same problem as a child. Nikumbh then starts teaching the boy to read and write right from the basic ABC… to math. Nikumbh believes that there lies a genius within this child, a creative genius. He polishes the rough diamond, and Eshaan now can read and write with Nikumbhs unconventional ways. Later that year Nikumb organizes an Art mela, where he invites all the teachers and students to come and paint. Eshaan wins the competition and his painting is printed as the front cover of the schools year book. At the end of the year his parents come to meet the school teachers and are surprised to see Eshaans progress. Not only does he win the competition but also does well at school.
All the movie puts forward in a simple way is that every child has his own capacity and level of thinking, he has his likes and dislikes, all the child needs is someone to polish him and set him in the right direction.
Overall the movie was more than just a movie, it touched my heart hope it touched yours too.