Things That Bang

'I cannot believe this dufur is Vani Dutta's sister!' The Hindi exercise copy came smashing down on my head.

'I seriously am telling you Mrs Dutta - Deepti cannot be Vani Dutta's sister! ' Mrs Tully's baleful look made my seven year old knees knock. I knew there was another whacking due on reaching home. My parents and teachers couldn't believe I was so different from my sister, she was an all rounder whereas I barely managed to pass.

Tears sprang to my eyes as I watched the little boy from Aamir Khan's movie listen to the same words - I cannot believe Ishaan is Yuhaan Awasthi's brother.

Though I did not suffer from dyslexia, I was a slow learner to begin with, every little thing took me time to understand. My mind like Ishaan's wandered; I liked to draw, play and write little Noddy stories. The world we grew up in didn't have place for dreamers as Aamir Khan said in the movie - Everyone wants their kids to grow up doctors, engineers or MBAs.

My mother used the same lines on me as did Ishaan's mother - Your friends will move ahead and you will be left behind.

The fear of failure always dogged my footsteps and I had no concept of self esteem. Anger was my defensive mechanism and suicidal thoughts showed me easy escape routes from life.

Aamir Khan's movie- Taare Zameen Par took me back to my own childhood. It was as if Ishaan was me, a little child lost despite having loving parents and studying in the best school. His anger was palpable, his acting heart-wrenching and his alienation from the world undeniable. The movie was raw and hard to face. The kind of mental abuse our children go through in the educational system is laid out for us to see in its ugly deformity and yet, while dealing with such serious topics the movie is fast paced and makes us laugh at Ishaan's antics in the first half of the movie.

As a director, Aamir Khan did an extraordinary job making the movie potential Oscar material. While the movies Lagaan and Rang De Basanti had social messages,  what made this movie more believable was the authentic projection of a regular family and their problems, whereas the other movies were more Bollywood-like.

Tributes were also paid to Hogwarts when the little alphabet spiders crawled through the window and under Ishaan's collar. One can't help but feel the stark difference between Harry's sense of finding home and Ishaan's total breakdown in their boarding schools. One got a sense of the movie being a cross between Rain Man and Pink Floyd's The Wall. Though giving tributes to movies seems to be the 'in' thing both in Hollywood and Bollywood. nevertheless the use of animation in the movie was both amusing and endearing.

Taare Zameen Par is by far the best movie of 2007 and I can see Aamir Khan emerging as the new Spielberg of India. The absentee father role that seems to be a central theme in most of Spielberg's films seems to be a similar theme in Aamir's movie as seen in the relationship between Aamir Khan who as the temporary art teacher Ram Shankar Nikumbh takes Ishaan under his wing and helps him turn around whereas his father fails to do so .

The songs of the movie are also pleasing and I couldn't help but notice references to Pink Floyd's songs. This is one movie I can watch again and still find subtle sub texts that have been woven into the movie.

Hopefully Aamir's next movie Ghajini which is to be released in the coming year would be equally enthralling