Bindaas!

A review of Taare Zameen Par

Movie, “bindaas!” as Ishaan Avasti (Darsheel Zafary), the character in the movie would say. Upfront, a simple film with a moving story about a child with a disorder – dyslexia. His disorder is not understood by anyone, and as a result he is labeled a lazy, rude and disinterested boy who remains behind in the race of everyday school competition. Enter, a different kind of a teacher, who has overcome the same condition in himself, to help the kid through it, gain acceptance in the eyes of his world by charting his own path to excellence.

But look again, the dyslexia is only the gateway; the movie does not attempt to get into the technicalities of the disorder, which may have interested only a part of the audience. Not using the term “education system” anywhere really, the movie shows glimpses of what is going wrong with our current schooling system and flashes of ideas for betterment here and there. But, neither has the movie started analysing deeply into schooling issues, nor tried to show The Way to correct the system. Yet, it has touched upon many problems with it, all connected, through a simple and inspiring story. Brilliant storytelling!

The three significant scenes which are heavy and dealing with overall questions of learning and schooling, flow in perfect timing and location in the movie. They come on suddenly without any building up to profound message-giving, forcing the audience to take the “bitter pill” so to say, and then swiftly we move on without wallowing.

One is the scene where the teacher, Nikumb (Aamir Khan), meets the child’s parents and pushes them to look at the purpose of educating their boy, the absurdity of their own expectations from him and the meaning of success, pointing to them as well as the audience the anomalies with the current societal approach to education and ideas of success and achievement.

The second is the powerful conversation between the father and the teacher which brings out the difference between true compassion and taking care of the (a) child, and the appearance of doing so. This scene very starkly places the child as the focal point in the entire gymnastics.

The third scene is the staff room, when the innovative teacher hits against a wall of lethargy, insensitivity and rigidity of the “system” in the other teachers.

Here the script stumbles, and this staff room scene is weaker than the other two in that, it only depicts the system’s arguments against a different learning-oriented values and schooling, but keeps the teacher who can see the problems, a passive listener.

Another problem in the film is that it does not stay true to its own punch line, “Every child is special”. In showing the one character and his trials in life, the other children are all clubbed into one uniformed mass laughing at him. The only exception is the one who becomes his friend.

A very good twist in the story is that the teacher himself is also dyslexic, because then there is empathy beyond anything else, and also an example of possibilities and opportunities for the child.

There are many little insights into children’s learning, human behaviour, and how relationships work, that are scattered in the movie and make it timeless – just a subtle awareness displayed without going too much into details and analysis – whether it is the suggestion of how to engage with the government, or it is the consciousness that there are other children without even the middle class comfort of our protagonist (without being didactic about it), or a simple understanding of how a child thinks, learns and responds.

One such subtle funniness in the movie is the play on the word, “drishtikon”, which means “perspective”. The boy is asked to explain a poem on Drishtikon, which he does so with a much deeper insight into the concept of perspective. To his utter chagrin, the Hindi teacher scolds him and appreciates another boy who re-quotes the poem in an explanatory way as he has been taught. One could almost miss the nuances of his fine explanation of perspective. Towards the end, the same teacher appreciates the boy to his parents, saying “What a different perspective your son has of things! Bravo!”

Technically, a sound production – music, visual and imagery brilliantly done (the title visual and music deserve special mention), and the performance of the actors is first-rate. The one aspect in which the editing gets unstable is when Aamir Khan is on screen. There are too many sudden cuts to close in on his face working up tears and getting highly emotional. It does not make sense that a person who is so passionately working with different kinds of children, and who has had a different childhood himself would burst into such emotion at the drop of a hat! And it is amateurish if the camera has to do a close-up every time he gets into emotion. I suppose this is to ward off the evil eye!

Conclusion however: this is a movie worth collecting for the library.