Director: Aamir Khan
Cast: Darsheel Safary as Ishaan Awasthi
Aamir Khan as Ram Shankar Nikumbh
Tanay Chheda as Rajan Damodaran Tisca Chopra as Maya Awasthi
Vipin Sharma as Mr. Awasthi
Plot Summary:
Taare Zameen Par looks at the plight of the student with an undiscovered disability in the Indian School system. Ishaan, a creative and artistic 8-year-old has to battle the learning disability of dyslexia. He cannot read or do even basic math, and as a result he fails all of his tests and is labeled a problem student by his teachers. He does not fit in with other children because of his lack of coordination and therefore spends much of his time on his own creating works of art and living in his own imagination. His father and mother are frustrated with him, and he has to live with his older brother who does well in both school and sports and is pretty popular.
One day, to avoid another test, he skips school and discovers the world outside of books and learning, but this leads his parents to discover how badly he has been doing in school, and at a meeting with the teachers, they decide to pull Ishaan out of school and send him to a boarding school. Ishaan does not understand why he has been sent away, viewing it as a punishment. At the boarding school the teachers believe he is stupid because he cannot write and crush his spirit. When his family comes to visit him they find he has stopped drawing, and are shocked by the difference in his behavior. He has stopped talking to all but one fellow student, stopped drawing, and seems completely destroyed.
Then, when all hope has been lost, a new teacher comes to school. Ram Shankar Nikumbh (played by Aamir Khan) is the new temporary art professor. He realizes Ishaan’s problems and rescues him. He goes to speak to Ishaan’s parents and they believe that because their son is dyslexic he must be placed in a school for mentally retarded children. Nikumbh discovers Ishaan’s drawings and realizes that there is something special about the boy. He then devises a way in which Ishaan can be encouraged to draw again, who then forms a very special teacher-student bond with Nikumbh.
A heart-warming film, Taare Zameen Par takes dyslexia and addresses the myths surrounding it. The film also looks at the parent’s desire for their children’s success, and criticizes the discounting of children who do not fit into the normal idea of a successful child. It is also a good view of Indian’s living in Mumbai in the style of the upper middle class, and focuses on the relations of Ishaan’s family to one another. A beautifully filmed and directed movie, Taare Zameen Par is Aamir Khan’s second film to be nominated for the Oscar’s Best Foreign Film Award. It is a must see! -Deborah Maxey
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