On this year's Children's Day, BollyCurry is here to celebrate it with our readers by commemorating a movie that has touched many hearts since it's release in 2007. This iconic film celebrated the unique talents in all children, and showed fraternity and understanding between children and adults - the fundamental goals of this day.

 

Taare Zameen Par is the story of a dyslexic child, Ishaan Awasthi (Darsheel Safary). Due to his condition, he is unable to get the good grades that his father, a career-orientated man (Vipin Sharma) expects. Ishaan's older brother, Yohan is perfect in every way in the eyes of their father, being good in school and sports. This makes Ishaan feel even more inferior. However, his mother (Tisca Chopra) loves Ishaan the way he is but is unsure of what to do with him. What makes the entire situation even worse is his learning disability is not diagnosed, so all the authority figures in his life assume he is pretending to struggle to cause trouble.

 

Upon receiving multiple complaints about Ishaan from neighbors and teachers, his father decides to send him off to boarding school with the idea that Ishaan needs a little discipline to bring him back on track. Despite Ishaan protests, he is forced to leave his family to go to the hostel. There, the teachers believe that Ishaan is a child with a low intelligence and has no desire to study. This image and his unhappiness at being forced to leave his home leads to Ishaan isolating himself from the other children and getting further lonelier. There seems to be no hope until a new art teacher comes along, Ram Shanker (Aamir Khan). 

Along with teaching at the school, Ram also teaches at a special school for disabled children. His knowledge of special needs children helps identify the underlying issue with Ishaan, that he has undiagnosed dyslexia. Ram visits the family of Ishaan to speak to them about dyslexia and assures the parents that the condition is no hindrance to the child's ability to succeed in life. He proves his point by mentioning certain dyslexic celebrities and also reveals his story of being dyslexic as a child too. With the support of Ram Shanker and his parents, Ishaan is able to rediscover the colors and joys of life. 

 

The film is very simple and straightforward. One of the most beautiful scenes is when Mr. Awasthi, who feels a little guilty about his behavior towards Ishaan and Ram, arrives at the school and explains to Ram that he researched dyslexia on Google to find out what it is and how it affects children in an effort to help Ishaan. Ram replies that children do not need parents who become experts, they need parents that love them, embrace them, encourage and support them through everything.

Taare Zameen Par is a wonderful movie not only for the main message that there is something special in all of us, but also for the many small and beautiful scenes it contains. What is one of your favorite moments from the scene?

Editors: Jot D. & Gunia M.
Graphics: Komal