Sunday, December 30, 2007

Taare Zameen Par

Who needs drama? This was my reaction when my dear friends A and H suggested 'Taare Zameen Par' movie for a team outing on a Friday evening. Tearjerkers on a Friday evening - what has this world come to? Hmmm - Despite my dear friend V's tagging me to blog, I have been avoiding it and laziness is definitely not the cause. Shall we say reluctance? Whatever it is I hope I give sometime each month for blogging :) Well coming back to the Friday movie, I was devising all plans to give an excuse to avoid it and I am glad that my plans went futile.

As a young dad (Oh yeah! I have a 2 month old who is ‘igooing’ and ‘agahhing’ right now) I was told TZP is a movie must for the parents to watch. So off I went to see my first movie in Mayajaal. The movie is all about a boy Ishaan Awasthi, who knows not to write hat as h-a-t - he writes with an h inverted or the t is replaced with its mirror image! Alphabets - English or Hindi - are always Greek and Latin to him. They are all symbols, which just confuses him to an extent that he fails in his third grade. What's even more miserable is that his own dad does not understand his problem. If there are better words for uncaring - do tell me, for that is how his teachers are to him. With little solace from his big bro and his sweet mom, Ishaan passes his pitiful life that is filled with black and white - An irony as he uses bright colors to paint - painting beyond perfection considering his age. Infact the movie starts with his own paintings at the background as the titles are being displayed - the painting he has drawn in his bedroom wall.

Failing to attack the right problem, Ishaan’s dad puts him in a boarding school where he becomes more introverted. Progression is perhaps the last word this poor kid with dyslexia could ever be aware of - until he meets his Seraph who takes him from darkness and shows the ray of light - the light that makes his life colorful. Nikumbh the teacher for special children joins the boarding school as an art teacher and incorporates astute methods to teach Ishaan who inturn learns to write h, t and thus proper English thru painting, clay modeling, and big boards and develops his motor skills through computer games and building blocks. And in the grand art competition finale, his painting wins and is published as the cover page for that year's school magazine.

The whole movie is colorful as was aptly told by my friend S after coming out of the cine hall. If I were to list the top scenes in the movie (Oh we are approaching new year and the top n list fever has caught me too), I would say these: The differently abled children perform in the Tulips Day - the annual day for the school for special children where Nikumbh works and as soon as the show gets over, the children and their parents run and hug each other. The entire episode is a guaranteed tearjerker. The next scene would be - Ishaan is curious to know what his mentor has painted in the art competition. When he gets to know that it was his self-portrait that Nikumbh has painted (And mind you this has its potpourri of colors), his small eyes are filled with tears - and so is ours.

Well many thanks to my dear friend H who patiently translated the dialogues every now and then! And thanks to A and H who were the main reason to compel me to come to the movie. Needless to say the drive back in the 9pm office bus to home sweet home with M, A and J was equally fun filled!

With More Thoughts...

2 comments:

Vidhya Rajesh said...

Nice review. We also are waiting for the DVD to come out to see it ... Loads of good reviews about this ..

vidhi said...

very nice blog......