TO EACH HIS OWN----STAR

There are various reasons to cherish Amir Khan’s directorial debut ‘Taare Zameen Par’ as a memorable film. It appears to have all the facets for enabling it to stand the test of time and be recounted as a veritable ‘classic’ in the years to come. Not least because of its poignant rendition of the travails of today’s children toiling across their childhoods overburdened by the expectations of everybody around them. Not least because of wonder kid Darsheel Zafary’s heart warming portrayal of a gawking child hindered by dyslexia. And not least because of the soulful music composed by that inimitable trio of Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy. TZP has to be cherished for all these and more.
The reason I shall keep returning again and again to TZP is because it subtly imparted to my attention the prime importance of individual perspectives. As we are made to follow the character of young Ishaan Nandakishore Awasthi’s journey from being a stammering, bumbling failure to the school’s most popular boy and a painter with budding genius, we are made to realize that truth, reality and success are ultimately the question of perspective. That is why Ishaan, unlike his elder ‘successful’ brother does not play tennis and top his class, rather he exercises his imagination and captures them on his canvas with astonishing skill. This is one of the most vital ‘messages’ that TZP communicates to its audience and it is nowhere more aptly depicted than in the scene where Ishaan is asked to comment on a poem describing a village river in his Hindi class. His answer is to hesitatingly explain the relativity of individual impressions-that things are simply not what they appear to be, but rather as we view them from our respective perspectives so that the ripples in a puddle of rainwater on the road might throw our minds to the tossing waves of the Atlantic and a harried vessel caught in its mercy.
The film is also an aesthetic capturing of boarding school life. Anyone who has been a part of boarding school will instantly relate to the vacant look on Ishaan’s countenance as he watches his family leave him behind on the doorstep of his dormitory.
The background score accompanying that heart wrenching moment is painfully captured in the lyrics of the song ‘Ma’ as a young disoriented mind slowly adjusts itself to living among strangers. Boarding school is not all nostalgia and bonhomie, neither is it only tears and longing, but like life itself , a portrait of both. I have to return to TZP because I too like Ishaan have been part of such a life. Long after the credits have stopped rolling, the film’s impact leaves you ruminating with fresh thought and emotion. For all these and much more TZP will be cherished. It was once said of Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’ that it wasn’t just a film, but a document of the human condition. It can safely be said that TZP earns the same laurel.