In India, the trend of achieving more than 90% in SSC has become a rage. Every parent desires his child to achieve the elusive percentage but the truth is that almighty has gifted every child with diverse abilities. In addition, some children are born with learning disorder medically termed as Dyslexia. Tragically, parents fail to recognize their talent or their learning disability and this leads to kids running away from home or taking a drastic step. Actor, producer and director Aamir Khan addressed this grave issue in his film Taare Zameen Par highlighting such children’s’ special abilities but also raised questions on the poor education system and the mad race among parents to seek more than 90% from their children.
Breaking Barriers: ‘Taare Zameen Par’ and Dyslexia Awareness
Interestingly, unlike art cinema or the documentaries, Aamir Khan brought home the serious subject in an entertaining style. The move was a huge hit and not only touched the hearts of audiences, but the film’s social messages played a key role in bringing about social change in India.
The key to Taare Zameen Par becoming a success was truly its impactful story that fascinated Aamir Khan to produce the film. Amole Gupte and his wife Deepa Bhatia jointly penned the story. Interestingly, while writing the script, the duo hadn’t intended to focus on dyslexia. They had sat to write a story inspired by Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa childhood who was a poor student in school but made it big in real life. Thus the idea was to make a film on a subject that school education is not a limitation to become successful in life.
However as the story developed and the duo did research they came across the Maharashtra Dyslexia Association and Parents where they met parents narrating their sorrowful tales of children suffering from learning disability, termed dyslexia in medical science. “Discovering that dyslexia is a common problem among 1 out of 5 students in India, the duo decided to focus on dyslexia.
The movie played a vital role in changing society. First, many parents understood the ill-effect of competition to score higher percentage and in turn, stopped putting too much pressure on their children. “Mumbai’s civic body authorities drew inspiration from the film and established 12 classrooms for autistic children.” Similarly, the Chandigarh education administration decided to start a course for teachers to deal with children with learning disabilities.
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