“Every Child is Special”- And this movie is too…

The title claims "Taare Zameen Par-Every child is special" and the movie weaves a simple, but beautiful tale to convey that message. The plot is very simple-it's about a boy who suffers from dyslexia and his parents are unable to understand why their child is so slow compared to others in his class. The child's tribulations and that of the family are shown in a very down to earth simplistic style. However what makes TZP steal your heart instantly is the fact that in the first half of the movie, we just see the world from the child's eyes. The sequence where the kid walks on the streets seeing simple things from his different perspective (with a beautiful song running in the background) will probably go down as one of the all-time classic scenes of Hindi cinema! For me personally (as it must be for many of us who grew up in a typical middle-class schooling system), it was a walk down the memory lane in the first half. I have been guilty of putting my parents in the Principal's office a number of times; I have camped (alright…kneeled down) outside class on a number of occasions. I have even had to show my knuckles and get beaten…like a zillion times (yep, I was a big-time trouble makerJ). I have even been thoroughly petrified by the prospects of boarding school! I have been subjected to the typical comparisons to peers that teachers and others make. Maybe we need to re-think the way we have designed the Indian educational system-but that's a different blog post altogether.

The mother who tries desperately to balance her love for her child and her desire to do the right thing for him is depicted wonderfully; the impatient father who throws the weight of his aspirations on the child's head is another interesting character. Aamir Khan plays the role of a teacher who helps the child get through the problem-a mature performance as usual, though I felt his costume was very out of place for the theme of the movie and the school. Another aspect that I felt made the second half fall short was this teacher-student relationship-it could have been built into a profound relationship-but Aamir has decided (probably rightly so) to focus more on conveying a message to all parents (and maybe, in my mind I am comparing this with Amitabh-Rani relationship in BlackJ).

Aamir Khan has a class of his own when it comes to picking movies in which he plays the lead role and that elegance is still evident in his directorial debut. Great choice of characters-especially for the roles of Ishanth and his mother. Moreover Aamir never strays from the theme and still keeps it riveting for the viewer-another great director is born...we could expect some excellent movies from him in the future :).

The songs are very soothing; the background score blends very well with the scenes and takes the movie to a different level. Then the lyrics….expressing a child's thoughts without getting childish is not easy and if you want to know how it is done, listen to "Meri maa" from TZP-Wow! (For a simple English translation of this song click here).

If you love children you will just love the movie, and if you don't love them yet, you will start to, after watching this movie.

PS, there is a small documentary feature that plays alongside the end titles of the movie-do sit through it. One more reason why life is so beautifulJ.