All I Need To Be Is Free!!!!. Review on Taare Zameen Par

Disclaimer:

Please don’t read this as a movie review as it’s more of a collection of my thoughts, thoughts I garnered while watching the movie & after that.  So if you are here to know about the movie only, then it won’t be useful for you.

Year 1996 I had an important journey to begin, was getting admitted for graduation, and was going to Rajasthan from Orissa (3 days of one side journey). Our ticket was for 12th July. My mom was away attending family tragedy and was expected to be back on 9th. I wanted her to go with me but her train was running late by 12 hours. Dad said that he will go to leave me as Mom would be very tired to start another long journey. I was sad and adamant. Mom came in on 10th night & in no condition to go. She saw me and said she will go, selfish me, was happy. When the time came for my parents to leave me at the college I got down from the bus, held my Mom’s hand there was a huge lump in my throat but I didn’t cry.

I didn’t remember this incident after seeing the movie but it came to me when I had read ~flyingelephant’s~ review on the same movie and when I went for the movie I was carrying this incident with me and when Ishaan’s parents leave him at the boarding school my heart went out for him.

TZP as you all know is the story of 9 year old Ishan, who is unable to keep pace with studies like any normal kid. The irony is that his own parents are not able to keep pace with his thoughts. They want him to outrun himself. Repeated failures in school see him at a boarding school where instead of finding himself, he looses himself, until he is saved by his temporary art teacher who discovers that he is suffering from dyslexia. How the teacher “Ram” saves him & how he confronts Ishaan’s parents forms the rest of the story.

I can go on gushing about the wonderful performance of Darshil, Aamir Khan and Tisca Chopra.

I can talk about the lovely way animation has been blended with Ishaan’s thoughts.

I can talk about the lovely music but have already reviewed it. But yes the only thing I can add on to it is that music has been used beautifully in the movie.

But this is not what I really wanna talk about.

*What I really saw in the movie

.:. Had been using the title every now & then but understood its real meaning in the movie. When it dawned on me I wasspell bounded. “Kho Na jaye yeh taare Zameen pe”, so apt. In the current environment of cut throat competition we forget that kids are a gift and we expect them to behave like adults, to be 1st in everything, no error here or there. But aren’t we sacrificing their childhood, their innocence? Does being a parent or an adult gives us that much power?

.:. Thrive to be first makes us forget everything? We stop believing our kids & agree to the third party, teachers in this case. Why become parents when you can’t understand & believe your own kid.

.:. Punishment is the solution? Agree sometimes kids can be difficult but is that the solution. Somehow I could identify with the teachers in the movie. I remember my math’s teacher; he used to hit kids a lot. He was too obsessed with the subject (he named his kids alpha & beta and am not joking). I was under constant terror as my math’s was bad but terror never helped as am as bad even today.

.:. Whenpeople say that this movie is for parents, would be parents & kids I don’t agree with them. Besides everything else I also learned that there is no “Seekhne ki koi umr nahin hoti”. But the only thing that is necessary is to adapt to changes and come out of denial.

.:.Icame out being thankful to my parents. Because they understood that I can not excel in science so they allowed me to take arts as per my wish. Today, am successful doing what I am doing today. Thanks to them. And seeing this movie made me aware that all kids are not as lucky. They are bound by the ambitions of their parents.

.:. The movie makes you cry big time. And it works, why? As far as I am concerned I was not only crying for the kid but aldo for the things which I had kept in me...the movie made new memories for me but it brought old ones too which were buried inside and in a way I had let go of them.

.:. It is movies like this & RDB which makes us wish to do something more about the society. Watching it I felt incapacitated with myself. What am I doing? Just writing on these movies, thoughts? Have I done anything for the society? Hope I actually do something...

At the end of the day it’s easy to preach but the movie serves its real purpose when we actually do something and charity begins at home. The movie not only tells us about being more sensitive to our kids but to understand that there is life beyond what we usually see as life. There is life beyond money and childhood is the age to explore that life. Childhood, which outgrows but still leaves a child within us. We shouldn’t let that child die in fact that child should peep out to understand the needs of the kids.

There are points which can surely be used to criticize the movie but it’s like belittling an effort which goes beyond making movie. It needs guts to make a movie like this and am glad somebody had the guts. The Movie is a must see for all.

PS Have loads to write about but the movie leaves you short of words.

PPS Watching the movie made me realise why so many reviews are being written on this. You just can't help it.