Try squinting at life you had so far. We all would be having our own take on it. Look more closely, and I am sure there would not be a single person who always had a smooth scale at it. The point is we
are never taught how to live. We are never told the value of life nor what it means to be fully alive. We have no idea of the wonders we can take from life. We are born into our world, educated to adjust to it accordingly to the dominant and then pretty much left to sink or swim.
Yahan alag andaaz hai, jaise chhidta koi saaz hai.
Har kaam ko taala karte hain, ye sapne paala karte hain.
And that is what happened to Ishaan Awasthi(Darsheel Safary), a 9 years old boy radiating extreme ignorance to the dictates of everyone around him. He could not comprehend what others considered normal. He did not fathom anything remotely related to geography or algebra. He found it hard to make alphabets stop dancing.
Ye hawa batora karte hain, baarish ki boonde padhte hain.
Aur aasmaan ke canvas pe ye kalakariyaan karte hain.
However, he gave his own impression to them and made them dance to his tune. Canvas was his stage, colors his medium and the letters mere dancers.
Akela nahi main, khuli aankhon se neend me chalta.
Girta zada, kam sambhalta. All I need is to be free.
But that was not reasonable to the society, to the education system, and much to his disappointment to his own parents who sent him packing to a boarding school. He cried, begged and swore to learn alphabets but boarding school it was for him.
Idiot, duffer, lazy, crazy.
Kya hai problem? Kyun tera bheja kum?
Boarding school was no different. Same set of dominating and ridiculing teachers, class mates who mocked at him and same alphabets who never stopped dancing.
Bum bum bole, masti me dole.
Bum bum bole, masti me tu dol re.
School hired new temporary art teacher Ram Shankar Nikumbh(Aamir Khan). A teacher who got into the psyche of these little angels like no one before. A teacher who used his own medium for teaching. A teacher who reasoned with his colleagues why only notebooks of students are kept safe and in order whereas the paintings by them are ignored and thrown.
Dekho inhe ye hain os ki boonde, patton ki god me aasmaan se koode.
Angdayee le fir karwat badal kar, nazook se moti has de fisal kar.
Ram’s eye caught Ishaan one day. Ishaan, who by now had gone into a complete mute mode, who never reacted to anything asked or said. Ram investigated his case by running through his notebooks, met up with his parents and made them aware of WHYs of Ishaan’s inability to grasp. The boy was dyslexic the teacher told them. The boy needed help he requested them. He convinced the principal to keep the boy in the school with rules relaxed a bit till he taught him all from beginning.
Tu dhoop hai chham se bikhar, Tu hai nadi o bekhabar.
Beh chal kahin, Ud chal kahin, Dil khush jahan, Teri toh manzil hai wahin.
Ishaan got to know a whole new meaning of education under Ram. Ram used Ishaan’s way to teach him. He gave in his complete self to the boy. It was a new birth for him. The world and its people were all new to him. He had smiled after long, had played with other boys in ages, got appreciation from teachers first time in his life. And all this was because of Ram. Had it not for him, Ishaan would have drowned in this chaotic world of formal education system.
There is no school for living. And more than that, there is drought of teachers of life. We are often given knowledge without judgment, and facts without meanings. And if we fail to meet the terms, we are termed useless and reliant. If we try to learn from examples, we find very few models. If we wish to live in agreement with the norms set, we will have to comply with everything defined. And if we risk it, look inside ourselves and proceed through trial and error, we are often discouraged to do so. But Ram Sir did not comply and set out to do something which seemed distant dream. And winning he came out in the end.
Yes, and that’s what Ram Sir in real life Aamir Khan did. And he did it with style and substance intact solidly inside this awe-inspiring piece of art. He went out and made something which was never attempted, never shown and never given importance to. His directorial debut is nothing less than a new beginning, a new course in Indian Film Industry.
There is no point talking much about this guy as he himself says his work speaks on his behalf and so is the case here with TZP. But I would definitely want to bring out the stunning job done by few associated. Creative director Amol Gupte(who actually was the director of TZP initially till some confusion happened and Aamir took over) also wrote the story of it and did the screenplay. Lyricist Prasoon Joshi who should definitely get a huge applause for penning down those gems from child’s perspective and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy who gave Prasoon’s gems a beautiful rendition. And above all Darsheel Safary. The boy in true words is FANTASTIC. All I wish for him is he gets nominated in the best actor category(not child actor category) along with the likes of SRKs and others this year for all awards as he is the best thing in the whole movie. Of course, there was script, plot and Aamir’s crisp direction but had it not for this boy, movie would never be the same.
In the end, all I can say for Aamir is: He definitely punctured the inflated ego of some biggies by coming up with this gem.