WE ARE a ragtag group in a small, bare room. No more than six or seven. On the wall before us, a little boy with impossible teeth is darting with an infectious comet-like energy through his little life. Neighbourhood fights, exasperated parents, scowling teachers, undone homework. He’s always in trouble, but there is something brilliantly joyous about him. You can’t help smiling in the dark. But then the darkness starts to deepen. The undone homework, the exasperated parents, the scowling teachers — they all gather in a frightening crescendo. The little comet can’t preserve its light. It is overwhel med. Extinguished. The little boy droops before our eyes.
And then, a flute note.
On December 21, a film will slip like a redemptive dewdrop into the noisy razzle-dazzle of multiplexes across the world. Superstar Aamir Khan’s directorial debut, Taare Zameen Par (TZP). It cannot get further from what one would expect. It has none of the staples of Bollywood: no fancy camerawork, no glitzy song, no triple star cast. None of the vanities of a first film from a man who could have all of it at a whim. TZP is just a simple story, simply told. Its effect is evident now in the small, bare room. Like the rest of us, Arshad, 23, is in tears. Neither his youth nor his trendy long hair is defence enough against the raw honesty of the film. “I know that helpless feeling. It took me back to when I was in Class III,” says he. “I was so bad at Maths I slipped a suicide note under my parents’ pillow. I was crying thinking of what the world expects of all of us.”
That is the secret of Aamir’s magical new film. It speaks to everyone. On the face of it, TZP might be about a dyslexic boy crushed un – til an empathetic art teacher rescues him, but at its core, it’s about the world’s imprisoning expectation. Quick-eyed Ishaan Awasthi, mesm erised by puddles and tadpoles, is the face — the aching remembr ance — of the free spirit each of us had as a child before we were ben – chpressed into adulthood. To watch his life-affirming anarchy leached away from him is to revisit a hundred buried memories. If not of ourselves, then of others whose lives slid by us.
It is because of this that, like Arshad, almost everyone who’s seen TZP in its trials has a cath – artic moment to share. Zakir, director Rakeysh Mehra’s driver, told him, “I’ve got four kids and I treat them the way the father in the film does. I will never again do that.” Suk oon Zak a ria, mother of two, says, “One always expects something extraordinary from Aamir, and he’s proved it again with this film. It’s so moving, so thought-provoking. You realise in your desire to be great parents, you end up damaging your kids.” “I was hypnotised,” says Mridula Joshi.
“The film puts you in touch with all the small emotions we’ve lost in our over-hurried lives.” Cinematographer Baba Azmi calls it “one of the most important films in our country now.”
Important, because like Rang De Basanti, TZP is certain to trigger crucial new conversations. RDB divined the sleeping idealism bene – ath India’s cynical urban youth. TZP touches a deeper and forbidden subject: the intensely personal world of children, parents and differing abilities. A world marked by private hells, anxieties, silences. Reshma Jiwani, mother of a 27-year-old son with learning difficulties, talks of the immensely difficult journey they had to make as a family. “My daughter was excellent at studies, but my son couldn’t cope. Both went to Bombay Scottish. When my son was 12, he sank into depression. We couldn’t understand what was happening. There were no facilities. We sent him away to a military school in Pune. There was so much hurt and antagonism. Then he met a teacher, Medha. She helped him hugely. He was a six-footer in Class VII and played great basketball. She put him in touch with his own special skills. The turning point came when I learnt to accept he was different.”
TZP almost exactly mirrors Reshma Jiwani’s story. And a million others such. In the overheated world of new age parenting — neurotic, success-driven, craving of the utopian child — counsellors and teachers across the country are struggling to shift the paradigm. “Parents don’t know how to leave kids be. They are so confor – mist, so competitive, they even compete about children’s hobbies and where they should go in their free time,” says Carole Paul, a special educator with The Step by Step World School in Delhi. “Individuality and imagination have no value.” Pressure, depression, low self-esteem, escalating adolescent suicides. That’s the underbelly of a normal childhood in India today. Insert a child with learning difficulties in that and you have a true measure of the darkness and self-hatred people live with.
“Parents forget children are like stem cells,” says Annie Koshy, principal, St Mary’s, Delhi. “They can take any shape, become anything. You can’t squeeze them into the figure you want. Education should be a romance, an adventure, a mystery, an opportunity to find the secret gift of every child. Not a regimentation.”
TZP — with its jugular message: every child is special — will come as powerful ballast for such conversations. In telling its affectionate, heart-warming story with delicate emotion and a courageous lack of melodrama, the film lifts the idea of children with special abilities out of their isolation and stigma and places them in a broader conversation about childhood at large. Leaving you strangely moved and introspective about what ability means in the first place. Because Aamir is a superstar in the most powerful cultural medium of our time, because his films are always rooted in the language of mass entertainment, and because Ishaan Awasthi is played to haunting perfection by saucy little Darsheel Sarfary, 8, discovered in a Shiamak Dawar class, TZP is bound to slip into people’s bloodstream and effect subconscious emotional transformations. A flute note in the noise. A reminder of the healing power of acceptance, imagination and play — the “fresh birth of everything”, as Tejal Chheda, mother of one of the child actors, puts it.
AAMIR HIMSELF has always had a gift for hearing this flute note in the noise. In following that note, in trusting its lone and often difficult call, he’s radically alt e – red the industry. “Only Aamir could’ve made TZP,” says Rakeysh Mehra. “Ten years ago, every star was doing several films at the same time and justice to none. Only one man in that madness had the clarity and strength to pull out and say, no. People called him too idealistic, difficult. They said he was throwing his career away, but ten years later you realise Aamir has changed the system single-handedly. Every star now does only one film at a time, it’s raised the quality bar of the entire industry.”
“It’s true. Aamir has modernised filmmaking,” says cinematographer Ravi Chandran, who’s shot films like Black, Dil Chahta Hai, Paheli and Saawariya. “It’s he who brought in sync sound as a producer. He who insisted on the discipline of written scripts and first ADs and contracts. He changed the ethos. Now everyone wants to make good films. Subcons c – iously he’s made us want to improve ourselves.”
Everyone is agreed Lagaan, Aamir’s first film as a producer, was a watershed. More, it was an act of lunacy. A crew of 300 carted from Bombay to a one-horse town in the Bhuj desert for a six-month outdoor shoot. An ent – ire village recreated in the harsh sand. And at a time when Bollywood is belting out its frothi – est and most colour saturated formulas, 25 crores spent on a quixotic script, a rookie director, and a film that has no star cast, no costume change, no conventional romance, no villain, and speaks in Awadhi and English — languages untested on the Indian box-office. In hindsight it looks easy: success is a powerful negotiator: it commands sanction. Once Lagaan became an international hit, few needed to remember that Aamir floated his own production comp any to make the film because no other producer would back its harebrained magic. As Satyajit Bhatkal, long time friend and fellow sufferer from Lagaan says,“Mad hai, kuch bhi kar sakta hai!”
Lagaan was singular in enabling a new imagination in Bollywood, redefining what a star or a hit film in a status quo industry could mean. But almost each of Aamir’s films since has displayed a similar illogic in choice followed by unblinking commitment. Lagaan was followed by Dil Chahta Hai — unconventional slice of life film, ensemble cast, first time director. Followed by a four-year hiatus and Mangal Pandey — a historical in the midst of chocolate NRI films, a low-octane director. Followed by Rang De Basanti — ensemble cast, fifth film on Bhagat Singh in recent time, and a director freshly emerged from a flop. “Only a man of immense self-confidence could make such choices,” says Kunal Kohli, director of Fanaa (Aamir’s only masala film in recent years), currently shooting a film in Bangkok with Rani and Saif. “In an era of Raj and Rahul NRI films, in an industry where everyone airkisses and ass-licks, we need a man like Aamir who doesn’t pamper anyone and never lowers his standards. He keeps things sane and level. Today, top filmmakers like Aditya Chopra, Karan Johar and Sanjay Leela Bhansali can get any star with a phone call, but no one can get Aamir without a script. It’s beautiful. It’s lovely to have a person like that.” “He’s swum miles and miles against the current, that’s why we’re talking about him today,” says Mehra. “He’s a fabulous entertainer yet when we look back, I think, his body of work is going to shine almost like a lonely star. He never judges directors by their flops and hits. He has the capacity to reach into the core and touch the nectar.”
WITH AAMIR, touching the nectar can express itself in many ways. Refusing a coveted statue at Madame Tussauds’. Refusing to back down on the Narmada under threat from Modi. Stoica lly withstanding a call from Abu Salem years earlier. Or turning down a 35 crore deal from Adlabs now because they didn’t have a script. When director Rakeysh Mehra ran into financ ial trouble before the start of Rang De Basanti, he sent him an SMS: Never fear. And waited five months without giving away the dates. “Which star at the peak of his career would give two years of his life to a film,” says Ketan Mehta. Aamir had not cut his moustache or hair for months after Mangal Pandey was wrapped, waiting till Ketan felt he had the footage he needed. “Producing a film like Lagaan, giving two years to Mangal Pandey, doing one film at a time — it takes great guts to do that and I think he’s been revolutionary in that sense.”
“I don’t intend it that way,” laughs Aamir, driving home late from a studio in Film City. He’s deep in the entrails of his new film. The first print is a few days away and he’s racing around town checking Dolby and colour and subtitles. He’s just re-recorded a 60-piece string section live because the synth sound didn’t satisfy him. (AR Rahman once laughed with amazement at Aamir’s ability to locate an off-note in a track with 20 layers in it.) “I listen to narrations as an audience, and I find myself attracted to the most off-beat scripts. Each time, I tell myself, Oh no! Not again! It can be very tiring to go with your belief. Lonely too. Once you’re in though, you have to hold firm.”
MORE REFLECTIVELY, he adds, “I’m hungry for different things now. I want to make really quality films about important subjects — but in a completely mass entertainment space. Somehow I feel more courage to do that now without looking over my shoulder.” It’s not just the gigantic boxoffice success of his choices that’s responsible for this. In a curious way, the turmoil of his break-up from a 17-year marriage — civilised as it may have been — and living separately from his children, has honed him, moved him closer to who he really is, both in his work and his personal life. Adversity has a way of clarifying one’s being. “It made me more aware of myself, more sensitive to others,” says he. Kiran’s companionship has completed the circle.
Aamir has always been a fiercely private man. In recent years, the media has feasted on unverified stories about him: an imminent break up with second wife, Kiran; supposed bitterness with his first wife, Reena; supposed cruelty to his ill brother, Faisal. He’s often portrayed as an anal perfectionist, brilliant at his work but lacking in human warmth. Nothing could be further from the truth, say those who are close to him or have worked with him.
“People are completely wrong when they describe Aamir in terms of some ‘analysisparalysis’,” says Prasoon Joshi, lyricist and CEO, McCann Erickson. “He’s a man who operates purely from heart and instinct. Everything else is post-rationalisation. I’ve worked with many stars,” he continues, “and I can tell you, Aamir is the gold standard. He’s a mirror in which other people have to square with themselves. He’s a rare friend. A superstar who’s not a meg alomaniac. He’s changed mainstream sensibility.” Even Karan Johar admits he has yet to make his own Lagaan or RDB.
“Two things drive Aamir,” agrees Kiran, “passion and instinct. Both for people and work.” During the July floods of 2005, Aamir almost rode out on a bike to look for his exwife who could not be traced for a while. He has looked after his brother and father for years. He’s widened the bed in his children’s room so he can sleep with them when they come to stay over. He let actor Siddharth deliver the climax of RDB because he felt it suited his character better. These are the kind of humanising details Aamir will never voluntarily share in public. Add to that the fact that he never goes for any award functions; he’s lashed out at the media for its celebrity obsession at the expense of primary duties; and he never graces supplements with gossipy interviews, and one has a sense of how precariously Aamir plays his stardom in a media saturated universe where success is often only as real as the perception of success.
Aamir cannot easily be drawn into cheap competitions, but as a close cousin says, “Aamir loves to win.” So if you scratch hard enough, he will concede the media’s superstar billings do grate on him sometimes. “I make no money for them, so the media would like to scale me down from a superstar to a good character actor, a kind of Balraj Sahni,” says Aamir, chuc k ling ruefully. “But star power is measured by a star’s ability to draw crowds in the first week on the strength of his name alone. To measure that accurately you have to look at the numbers.”
THE NUMBERS always look splendid on Aamir. He commands astronomical rates: he will earn 25 crores from his fee and share-of-profit from his forthcoming film, Gajini. And every maverick film of his has earned the same if not more than the masala competition, including films like Don, Krrish, KANK, Koi Mil Gaya, Main Hoon Na and K3G. The thing to remember here, says Kohli, is that on one side there’s only Aamir, risky scripts, and a host of unknown actors and directors. On the other, there’s all the fire power of the industry. Star directors, multiple stars, powerful production houses, and tested formulas. Yet the numbers compare favourably. What’s more, each time other superstars move away from their secure comfort zones, they falter. As Naseer uddin Shah says, “Aamir is the only star I can think of who is not producing films only to make money. And the same directors have fallen flat when they have attempted similar films without him. That says a lot about him.”
“Perhaps a star should be measured by his flops,” says Aamir wickedly, confident in the knowledge that Mangal Pandey made about 18 crore in its first week, while hits like Veer Zaara made 17. But that’s only a momentary wickedness. Truth is, Aamir and Shah Rukh represent two diametrically different impulses in the industry. Shah Rukh is the Dionysian principle: charisma, material flamboyance, and cheeky self-appropriations, endearing in their outrageousness. He does not challenge people, he fulfils their fantasy. He makes people comfortable because he allows them to coast in shallow waters: he is the magnified image of the world’s hunger for razzle-dazzle luxury: its desire to work hard and live light. There’s an honesty to that which has a charm of its own. It may not make for great cinema, but it creates great and crucial placebos.
Aamir represents something harder, more complex. He whispers to people about their better selves. His stardom lies in his craft, his deep, almost uncanny, acumen to reach for the heart of things. The mystique of Aamir is that he is an idealist in an industry that does not require him to be one. That’s his magic move. And it pays rich dividends.
Drawing away from Aamir’s house, a cab driver says, “Is sheher mein bahut sitare dikhte hain, par is aadmi ko dekh ke dil khush ho jata hai. Bahut nek hain. (This is a city full of stars, but seeing this man makes one’s heart happy. There is such a clean sincerity about him.)” And purity can be very flamboyant. As Jaideep Sahni, scriptwriter, Chak De, says, “In a cynical world, what can be more flamboyant emotionally for people than an important man who consistently stands by what he believes in. I’m certain Aamir’s film will have great sensitivity coupled with a quiet aggression about what the film has to say, backed by the philosophy that nothing has the right to be boring.
TZP lives up to that. As Javed Akhtar says, “Taare has a minimal quality that only masters of their art can afford. They know how much is enough — you find this in actors like Brando and poets like Meer.” Writing about Aamir can be hazardous, because to ring true, every encomium needs a critical note the black spot that will make it real. In Aamir’s case, it’s tough to find. He can be bull-headed, Mehra offers gamely. But that’s a necessary trait. To hear the flute note.
