Taare Zameen Par: an evaluation.

[Note: the title says that this is an evaluation of the film, and not just a review. I have not merely spoken of the cinematic aspects, but the themes it explores, and the thoughts and views it has aroused in me. It will be a long read, and will bring some unpleasant realizations to some people. If you don't want to undergo those realizations, do stop reading right here].

“The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.”
----William Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper.

That’s exactly how I felt as I stepped out of one of the theatres of my hometown Durgapur. Only, what had mesmerized me was not a piece of music, but a film that, in my opinion, surpasses every other movie produced by Bollywood in 2007. I am talking about Taare Zameen Par. Just as the reaper maiden’s song continued to haunt and inspire Wordsworth even after it was no longer audible, Aamir Khan’s first directorial venture has cast a spell over me—and over millions of others—that is yet to be lifted.

Of the ‘Khan brigade’ of the Indian film industry, Aamir alone routinely comes up with movies that are strikingly different from the standard, mediocre (and often atrocious) romance/ action/ family flicks. The best of Aamir Khan-starrers are characterized by an off-beat, gripping and thought-provoking plot, backed up by a strong script and memorable performances. Sarfarosh, Laagan, Dil Chahta Hai, Rang De Basanti, and now Taare Zameen Par—all bear testimony to this. But whereas in the other films Aamir just played the lead role, in Taare he also steps into the director’s shoes. And he proves that he is as splendid behind the camera as he is in front of it.
He could easily have chosen to make a commercial, ‘masala’ film, to ensure that the first film he has directed succeeds at the box-office. But remaining true to his spirit, he goes for an unconventional, challenging subject. Unconventional because the film revolves around a child who has dyslexia, a disorder that many haven’t even heard of; and challenging because the events of the film are mostly seen through the eyes of a child, while the director is an adult in his forties. To make the film convincing, therefore, Aamir was required to invoke, to reawaken the child in him. To do that, adult egos need to be put inside a box, all jadedness and world-weariness be shoved aside, and the sense of wonder and innocence be rekindled. And seeing that the film offers a delightful, soul-stirring insight into the world of a troubled child, Aamir had certainly managed to accomplish all these.

The protagonist, Ishaan Awasthi, is an eight-year old kid whose world is replete with wonders that no one else seems to notice, let alone appreciate. Bright colours, fish, dogs and kites are just not important in the world of grown-ups, who are more concerned about such things as order, homework, marks and neatness. The world Ishaan inhabits—but doesn’t belong to—is one where cut-throat competition is the norm and regimentation desirable. It is world where teachers have no qualms about rapping a child’s knuckles and subjecting him to physical and verbal abuse if he gets his spellings wrong, forgets to do his homework or fails to give a copybook answer. It is a world where parents are hell-bent on moulding their children into ‘winners’ (read top-scorers in examinations), trampling the children’s dreams and desires, ignoring their needs and overlooking their hidden talents on the way.
Ishaan is clearly a misfit in this world. He is a dreamer, blessed with a fertile imagination, but at a loss when it comes to making sense of alphabets and numbers. He loves to paint, but hates his textbooks. He can see fish flying, but fails to grasp the difference between ‘b’ and ‘d’. When asked to answer what 3 x 9 amounts to, he loses himself in a world where he is a superhero who has to rescue planet no. 3 (Earth) from Mars and put it in the position of planet no. 9 (Pluto). As, under Captain Ishaan’s guidance, no. 3 Earth blasts no. 9 Pluto into smithereens and takes its place, 3 x 9 is equal to 3 for Ishaan. When he forgets to complete his Maths homework, he bunks school to go on a day-long walk on the streets, marvelling at the ice-cream seller’s ability to blend colours and prepare delicacies, at the bravado of those who climb the high bamboo ladders to paint signboards, and at the vastness of the sea. Add to this his habit of catching tiny fish in the muddy drain outside his school, his love for dogs before whom he tosses his test papers, his ability to lose himself in a universe of his own even while brushing his teeth, bathing or having breakfast, and the fact that he spends most of his hours at the school punished outside the class and letting his imagination run riot, and you find enough ‘reasons’ for vilifying Ishaan, for not being like everybody else. It doesn’t help either that his brother Yohaan is a topper in the class, and that he has failed in his class III examinations. Even Ishaan’s appearance makes him an oddball and puts him in more trouble —his overlarge front teeth and slovenliness make him a subject of ridicule.
But Ishaan is no idle dreamer like Walter Mitty. Not by a long shot. What he visualizes, he draws on the paper (and even on the walls of his room). Painting is the one thing while doing which he is himself, and at ease. In fact, as is noted later in the film, the ideas and colour combinations he uses are unexpected from a boy as young as him. He also carries with him a small pouch that contains apparently worthless tiny objects, but by putting which together he can make beautiful small models (such as that of a toy ship).

Unfortunately, such abilities hardly get recognition in the educational system of our country, if the child concerned doesn’t also have impressive report cards to flaunt. Consequently, Ishaan’s parents, especially his father, consider him to be a disobedient, inattentive, mischievous lad. They are disturbed by the fact that Ishaan is lagging behind his classmates, but instead of probing into the problem and trying to understand what ails their child, they simply brand Ishaan as a ‘bad boy’. Convinced that some strict discipline will straighten him out, Ishaan’s father packs him off to a boarding school, much against both Ishaan and his mother’s wishes. Things are hardly any different there; Ishaan still has problems with his lessons, the teachers at his new school resort even quicker to the cane, he receives humiliation rather than help for his shortcomings, and he also has to deal with the added trauma of separation from his family. Rajan Damodaran, the first-boy of the class, is his only friend, but even he cannot bring Ishaan out of the shell into which the latter has retreated in an attempt to save himself from the antagonistic environment he has been sent to.

Into this situation bursts a substitute drawing teacher, Ram Shankar Nikumbh. Through music and cheerfulness, he wins the children’s heart on the very first day. He encourages the children to be creative and to give fancy a full rein on the canvas. Unlike the other teachers who chant the motto of “discipline, rules and hard work”, Nikumbh, without denying the importance of those qualities, refuses to impose them to an extreme end. Instead, he puts greater emphasis on imagination, individualism, and following one’s heart. He notices the sad, scared and lonely Ishaan, and after identifying in him the symptoms of dyslexia and his brilliance as an artist, takes it upon himself to help the kid. He adopts unconventional teaching methods to help Ishaan to cope with his lessons, at the same time nourishing his gift of painting. Finally, Ishaan succeeds in winning the first prize at a grand art competition held at his school, and also scores well in the annual tests. Thanks to Nikumbh Sir, he is no longer a suffering child, but a confident and capable lad whose journey to triumph is narrated and lauded by all.

The story is told in a simple, straightforward manner. Indeed, it strongly underscores the statement I had read a few days ago: “Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought.” This is also what Tagore emphasized upon as he wrote:
“‘Write for us something simple’, is what you always ask,
Let me tell you, being simple, is not an easy task.”

Though the movie is about a mental disorder, at no point does it burden the audience with medical jargon and complicated explanations of the labyrinth that is the human mind, and yet succeeds in depicting Ishaan’s problems in a most humane and understandable manner. Prolixity is something any fool can accomplish; but it takes a genius to tell a story that’s largely psychological so lucidly.

The screenplay is well-written. The well-composed music by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, coupled with Prasoon Joshi’s excellent lyrics, makes the songs Jame Raho, Bum Bum Bole, and Kholo Kholo Darwaze truly memorable. The other songs are good too, but some of them should have been edited to make the film even more rivetting an experience. In fact, if the film is found wanting in any department, it is editing. The second half needed to be tauter; some sequences are just too long. But nitpicking aside, what Aamir has accomplished in this film can only be called astonishing, and when it ends, audiences are unlikely to feel discontented.

The film is groundbreaking in many other ways. One could write pages on its cinematography alone. There is a scene where Ishaan stares out of the classroom window at a puddle on the road, where the sun is reflected in the water. Whenever a vehicle splashes across the puddle, the sun’s reflection is broken into several glittering pieces, before it forms a complete reflection again. It is symbolic of Ishaan’s world, where befuddled adults are hell-bent on mutilating anything that’s beautiful and fulsome. Such symbolic cinematography is common in Hollywood, Latin American cinema and French movies, but seeing it in an Indian film is a very pleasant surprise indeed.

No accolades are enough to give Darsheel Safary his due. As Ishaan, he is stupendous to say the least. He has only a handful of dialogues in the entire film; he mostly lets his eyes and expressions do the work. That’s tough, especially for someone who is not even ten. But Darsheel brings out his character’s charm, dreamy disposition and dyslexic problems in a most touching and realistic manner. Had he been born in a western country, he surely would have rivalled the likes of Daniel Radcliffe in popularity. Aamir Khan is marvellous as usual. As the sympathetic, ‘breaking-all-norms’ teacher, he reminded me, more than once, of Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society and Spencer Tracy in Boys Town. He is at his best in the scene where he meets Ishaan’s parents and informs them on their son’s dyslexia. In that scene, he is by turns confrontational, helpful, chiding and optimistic. Two other scenes worth mentioning are where Aamir convinces the headmaster of the school to allow him to devote more time to Ishaan, and when he draws a portrait of Ishaan during the painting competition. It is heartening to see that despite taking up the additional responsibilities of directing and producing the movie, Aamir hasn’t lost his prowess as an actor. Tisca Chopra and Vipin Sharma as Ishaan’s mother and father respectively, and Tanay Cheda as Ishaan’s pal Rajan have also done a very good job.

But these are merely cinematic assessments. These are not the reasons why Taare has left me spellbound. The real reasons why I believe this to be a gem of a movie are listed below:

1) It places a great deal of importance on the sense of wonder, that one faculty which Albert Einstein, Bibhutibhushan Banerjee, Rachel Carson, Steven Spielberg, and many others, called the highest of all sensibilities. All revolutionary inventions of science, and all great works of art have been born out of this sense of wonder. It takes a very keenly observant and highly reflective mind to be able to wonder at, and appreciate the beauties of Nature or the works of a maestro. The expression on Ishaan’s face as he sits before the Arabian Sea and is awestruck by its vastness, or when he daydreams away as his mother hurries him to get ready for school, strongly reminded me of the wide-eyed Apu from the famous trilogy of Satyajit Ray.

Had Ishaan lacked this ability, he would never have been able to become a good painter, for much of what is charming, curious, pageant and profound would have escaped his vision. That Aamir has infused the protagonist of his film with such a novel quality, speaks volumes of his artistic sensitivity. In this context, let me also comment upon the lyrics of the first song of the film. The song speaks of two types of people. On one hand, there are those who are orderly to the point of being mechanical, who are in a perpetual hurry, who are in constant tension of remaining ahead of others in the race.
On the other hand, there are those who:

“Ye Waqt Ke Kabhi Ghulam Nahin

Inhain Kisi Baat Ka Dhyan Nahin

Titli Se Milne Jaate Hain

Ye Pedon Se Batiyate Hain

Ye Hawa Batora Karte Hain

Barish Ki Boondein Padhate Hai

Aur Aasmaan Ke Canvas Pe

Ye Kalakariyan Karte Hain.”

[These people are not slaves to time, and they care not for norms and worldly trivialities. They talk to butterflies and plants, they marvel at the whoosh of the blowing gale and the pattering of raindrops, and they use the sky as a canvas for painting their fancies].

The message of the song is clear: the first category of people, the ‘practical’, ‘realist’, ‘competitive’ ones, shall forever remain runners in the rat race, while it is from amongst the latter group that the great artists and visionaries shall be born, for those belonging to this group have that one great capacity to wonder. This, in turn, enables them to ponder, imagine, invent and create. Such people may initially be mistaken as lazy, silly and worthless; that, in fact, is exactly what is thought of Ishaan at first. But they are the ones who have what Carson called the “clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring.” And it is through their efforts and achievements that human civilization has progressed through the ages.

2) The film addresses and criticizes all that is wrong with parenting and schooling in this country. Ishaan’s parents, especially his father, represent the majority of Indian parents today: insensitive, over-ambitious about their children, subjecting the children to stern actions if they fail fulfill expectations, while devoting little time in understanding the problems the child is suffering from. It is truly incredulous that despite observing Ishaan for so long, and despite constantly lamenting and fretting that he fails to understand his lessons, his parents never realize that he may be suffering from some learning problems. Nikumbh Sir, on the other hand, only has to browse through a few of Ishaan’s notebooks to understand that he is a dyslexic child, and takes the necessary steps to help him overcome his drawbacks. As one of my friends has rightly noted, the scene where Ishaan’s dad tells Nikumbh Sir that Ishaan’s mother has done her share of caring for her child by reading extensively on dyslexia from the Internet, is laden with dark humour. He proudly tells Nikumbh Sir, “Don’t think we are the sort of people who do not care about their children.” But when Nikumbh Sir explains to him what “care” truly means, the man is so embarrassed that he leaves without speaking another word. That is the sort of people who become parents nowadays: they don’t have the slightest idea about how to “care” for the children, but are absolutely at ease about it. There is a particularly moving scene where Ishaan’s mother discovers a flipbook, in which Ishaan’s drawings show how much sorrow he had undergone when he was forcibly sent away to the boarding school. It is only after seeing it that she somewhat understands Ishaan’s pains.
Another disgusting tendency in today’s parents is making it mandatory for the kids to participate in the rat race, from as early an age as possible. The child must be trained as a fighter, ever ready to participate in the ‘struggle’, and the imaginative, contemplative sort must be dismissed as losers. Everybody ought to be regarded as a rival, such things as friendship, trust and co-operation are to be treated as abstract terms of no real value, anything that doesn’t fulfill the requirement of being useful in passing a test or getting a job must be regarded as worthless. That is why Ishaan’s parents consider his painting skills to be of little 'faida': it’s a big bad world out there, they argue, and painting is of little ‘use’ in coping with it and achieving success. Success, in the dictionary of Ishaan’s—and those of many other’s— parents undoubtedly mean getting this job or that, acquiring a flat, a car and a credit card, and thus gaining a ‘status’, by which they mean arousing the envy of the likes of themselves, for they know fairly well that the best-selling author, the popular film star, the successful sportsperson, the business tycoon, and other distinguished achievers in various fields don’t give a damn about the status of the middle-class. And that is all the rat race is about: mediocrity. No wonder it has been said that the victor in a rat race remains a rat. My English teacher Suvro Sir puts this brilliantly: “They all want their children to be ‘successful’, and yet not for a moment do they stop to reflect that without health, and loved ones, and time, and good taste, and work that one really likes to do, and certain firm and high ideals, living life constantly in the distracted mode, and constantly following the herd, merely a little bit of money or temporary worldly power can by no stretch of the imagination bring any meaningful success; they can only create more insoluble problems private as well as social.” In that quotation, the “following the herd” part is most important, for that is the hallmark of a rat race: you must do what all others are doing. Individualism is crushed beneath the heels of the thousands of scampering rats. Those who wish to do something, anything worthwhile, must listen to Robert Frost’s advice of taking the road less travelled by. Joining a bandwagon is the surest prescription of remaining a non-entity forever. Nikumbh Sir understood this too well: that is why, while helping Ishaan with his lessons, he makes it a point to convince his parents and teachers that Ishaan’s vocation is painting, that his skill with the brush is what sets him apart, and that it is to that end that Ishaan should put more effort. As stated earlier, Ishaan’s parents initially refuse to believe that painting can actually be treated as anything more than a hobby in today’s world, but when Nikumbh Sir asks them that if there is any hard-and-fast rule that every child must be forced into the straightjacket of medicine, engineering or management, the parents have no answer. At another point, Nikumbh Sir angrily remarks, “This habit of trying to make one’s own unfulfilled ambitions come true through their children, is worse than child labour. If all they want is runners in the rat race, why don’t they breed racing horses instead of giving birth to children?” That is the bottom-line: the children are not born to fulfill the parents’ greed and frustrated ambitions. Just because the parents have given birth to the children and have provided for them, doesn’t oblige the children to unquestioningly obey all that the parents say. The children have lives of their own, dreams of their own, choices of their own. They are not to be forced into the rat race because that’s the done thing; they are not to be told to pursue a particular career just because many others are doing so. That’s not parental guidance, that’s dictatorship. It is as ‘natural’ for a child to want to become an engineer as it is for him to desire to become a painter. He who wants to study History need not necessarily be inferior to he who aspires to study Physics. At the end of the day, what matters is not what the ‘others’ (which means a tiny circle of ill-informed friends, relatives, neighbours and colleagues) say is ‘normal’, but what the child is good at, and truly likes to do. That, and that alone guarantees success.

The teachers aren’t spared either. The film not only criticizes the teachers’ tendency of quickly adopting physical punishments as a means of teaching, it also condemns the teachers’ attitude towards education. When the Hindi teacher asks Ishaan to explain the meaning of a poem, Ishaan comes up with a rather unconventional answer that truly captures the essence of the poem. But because it is not similar to the standard (and hence, trite) answers that are expected in a classroom, the teacher scorns Ishaan and tells him to sit down. Only Rajan can appreciate the fact that Ishaan alone has understood the real meaning of the poem, but he sadly remarks that the teacher concerned insists that the students should produce answers exactly according to his instructions. And that is primarily what is wrong with the education system in this country: a preoccupation with cramming, conventional approach and passing the tests. Everything must be seen in terms of the immediate gain (read marks) it can bring. Originality is not expected and not entertained. Even in the drawing class, the teacher places an object on the desk, and asks the children to draw it. Art, which requires imagination and creativity above all else, is thus reduced to mere imitation. The other teachers of the school sagely advise Nikumbh Sir that the sole purpose of education is to groom the children for the competitive world waiting for them. Nikumbh Sir quietly disagrees, and goes about doing things his own way, for he alone understands that education has a much higher purpose than passing examinations and getting jobs.

There is a particular scene in which Nikumbh Sir tells the children of his class about various people who suffered from learning problems and were written off as goners in their childhood, but who went on to become titans in various fields. He mentions Albert Einstein, Thomas Alva Edison, Pablo Picasso, Leonardo Da Vinci, Agatha Christie, Walt Disney, and—hilariously—Abhishek Bachchan as examples. That list could be extended much further by adding such names as W.B. Yeats, Richard Branson, Fred Epstein, Tom Cruise and many others, but it isn’t necessary. What is important is what Nikumbh Sir says—“This world has seen the birth of such great men, who changed forever the way we view the world, because they could see it with their own unique vision. They weren’t exactly what you would call ‘normal’, and the people around them could not stand that. So, they littered the path of the great souls with obstacles. But these men ultimately won, and won so grandly, that the others could only stare at them with awe.”
Though Nikumbh Sir does this primarily to encourage Ishaan, to make him believe that he can triumph over his learning problems and achieve great things, the scene has another message too. Through it, the director wants to make us aware that academic excellence—or the lack thereof—cannot be the sole yardstick of judging a person’s merit. Sure, a person who has a handsome report card can be a grand success in life. But so can a man whose academic record isn’t dazzling, but whose skills in some other field is. In fact, many of the ‘good’ boys in school are often lost in the crowd, while those who remained inconspicuous in the classroom go on to become achievers in the true sense of the word. This is because what we commonly designate as ‘intelligence’ in the schools and colleges is nothing but the ability to memorize things and write them down in the answer script. That requires no genius, and lots are able to do that. Yet, such is the educational system of our country that students are hardly allowed—or able—to think beyond the constraints of examinations and marks. Needless to say, such attitude never produces Einsteins and Da Vincis and Disneys: it only produces countless people who “know the price of everything and the value of nothing” (an Oscar Wilde quotation that Aamir uses to great effect in the film). This scene, I believe, has great relevance in today’s India, where we are constantly being told that there is a bustling ‘knowledge economy’ in the country, when we haven’t produced a single Nobel laureate since independence in either the sciences or in literature (in fact, there aren’t any Indian scientists or authors alive who are unanimously regarded as great all over the world); there is no Indian who is held in esteem even by the most influential of foreigners (like Gandhi and Tagore and Nehru used to be looked upon); for building the roads and to get the best weapons and equipments for our army and to carry out the most difficult medical operations we still depend upon supplies and aid from America, Europe, and the developed Asian nations like Japan and Israel; and our record is pathetic when it comes to Olympic medals (or for that matter, any sports except cricket; and I don’t think that India will remain a significant name in cricket either if the Americans, the Chinese, the Russians and the Western Europeans seriously start taking interest in the game), Oscars (and other significant film festivals like those in Cannes, Berlin and Venice), and Grammies. Despite these glaring shortcomings, we are being fed the nonsense of ‘India shining.’ How long is it going to be before we realize that cybercoolies and salesmen working for Wipro, Infosys and TCS and the like can never make a country shine, that it is people like the ones Nikumbh Sir mentioned who really create a nation’s identity? Here is another quotation from Suvro Sir: “Business schools are now a dime a dozen, and virtually every Tom, Dick and Harry can get and is getting an MBA these days, at least so long as Daddy can shell out a bit of hard cash – and nobody cares whether daddy was a government clerk who grew fat on bribes, or a successful milkman or near-illiterate road contractor whose brother-in-law happened to be some petty political leader with the right connections. It is the same story with engineering courses, more or less. Thousands of jobseekers, all armed with BTech/BE and MBA degrees are queuing up for every low-end, poorly-paid, uncertain job that any reputed company advertises: lots of such people in their late twenties are now doing the work of glorified clerks or maintenance mechanics or salesmen on commissions, and if they are not scrounging, they are living it up solely on the strength of credit cards backed up by their parents’ savings – but just see how high their opinions of themselves are, and how fragile their egos! And yet it is an open but universally suppressed secret that, despite fanatical obsession with ‘education’ from the time they were tiny tots, they are so ill-informed and so poorly groomed that after 16 years of schooling, they are being tested for basic literacy and numeracy (witness the contents of all the MBA-entrance tests) and then being ‘taught’ basic good manners like saying sorry and please and thank you and may I, and learning to sit straight and shut doors quietly and not shout at people and spit right and left and leer at female colleagues and clients and endless inanities of the same sort…unless knowledge is reduced to mere functional skills of this or that sort (mostly very low-level and limited to the material sciences, too) there are very few knowledgeable people around these days.” That is the state of education in India today, and a large part of the blame lies with the teachers—how many of them encourage the children, as Nikumbh Sir does, to become an Edison or a Picasso and not just another doctor or engineer or seller of credit cards? Far from being an inspirational figure like Nikumbh Sir, teachers and professors nowadays have no qualms about poisoning young minds with such rubbish as “Education is all about packaging”, “Career is not what you want, but what you get”, “At the end of the day, the report card is all that matters”, and “Admire idealists, but never be one yourself.” Teachers, I believe, play a very crucial role in shaping a nation’s future, for it is they who coach the posterity. And if this section of the population becomes as rotten as it has in our country, what hope can remain of a bright future? Our country badly needs at least a hundred Ram Shankar Nikumbhs, not to mention truly caring, wise and able parents too. Therefore, I agree completely with the reviewer of The Times of India, who wrote that Taare Zameen Par should be “a mandatory viewing for all schools and all parents.” Indeed, if the film succeeds in having a real, positive effect on one person out of the every hundred who see it, Aamir’s effort in making it will not have gone in vain.

3) Which brings me to the third point: this movie is the latest in the line of recent Bollywood films that have explored teacher-student relationships, and have explored it in a most cinematic, thought-provoking manner. Nagesh Kukunoor’s Iqbal was one such film, where a middle-aged ex-cricketer trains a deaf and mute rural youth in order enable him to play for the Indian cricket team. Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Black was an unprecedented masterpiece about a blind and deaf girl, who is shown the ‘light’ by an old and somewhat eccentric teacher. Taare Zameen Par similarly depicts a disturbed kid who is understood only by a teacher at his boarding school. Having met my share of bad teachers alongside a few truly great ones—Suvro Sir, whom I have quoted in this essay itself, is one of them; he has helped me at several important junctures in my life, and has indebted me to him forever in more ways than one—I know quite well the necessity of a good teacher in life.

4) The movie has surprising parallels with Achalayatan (The Petrified House), one of the most well-known plays by Rabindranath Tagore, and also one of my favourites. The play deals with the efforts—and the success—of a rebellious pupil and his guru, whom he calls ‘Dadathakur’, to bring music, vitality and freedom in an educational institution that, quite like its granite walls, is monolithic, and runs on meaningless, age-old, obsolete traditions and superstitions, and demands unquestioning following of those rules and rituals. The boarding school Ishaan is sent isn’t quite unlike the institution Tagore depicts: as mentoned earlier, even the drawing teacher there calls for obedience rather than imagination. The entry of Nikumbh Sir in this school is like that of a breath of fresh air. The scene in which he first appears, as well as the song that follows, are wonderful. Nikumbh Sir sings, “Khulke soche aao/ Pankh zaara phailao/ Raang naye bikhrao” [Think with an open mind, let your fancy spread its wings, and add colours to your life]. And that has been, I can recall, the final word from all great educationists, be it Tagore himself, Wordsworth, or John Dewey. By the end of the movie, as we see even the formerly unlikable teachers sitting down to paint with childlike enthusiasm (even if what they draw is comically abysmal), there is no doubt left that Nikumbh Sir has managed to shatter the Achalayatan. I don’t know if Aamir has read the play. But he has certainly captured its message splendidly on the celluloid.

The famed American film critic Roger Ebert had said in his review of E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, “Some [movies] are to make us think, some to make us feel, some to enable us to smile, some to make us weep, some to take us away from our problems, some to help us examine them. What is enchanting about "E.T." is that, in some measure, it does all of those things.” The same can be said about Taare Zameen Par. It is a movie that works at various levels, and impresses in more ways than one. It is not just about one child; it is the story of every child who is being robbed of his/her childhood by ignorant parents and teachers. It is not just a sentimental tearjerker; it is a most timely film on a serious issue. It is not so much an exploration of dyslexia as it is about how someone who is different from the crowd is not simply disliked but ferociously attacked in our society. It entertains while constantly reminding that its purpose is to instruct and enlighten. Whether it will succeed in its task or not, I cannot predict. But two things can be said for sure:
(i) In making this film, Aamir Khan has brought up the standard of Indian cinema by several notches.
(ii) He has provided a perennial source of inspiration to me, a person who in his younger years often found himself as scared and scorned as Ishaan for his less-than-brilliant ability in understanding certain subjects.

If the morning really shows the day, then we can surely look forward to more tour de force films from Aamir. “Every child is special”, was the tagline the film carried. So, I hope, will be every film he directs henceforth. Given that in a country where film-goers are generally uncouth and shallow, there weren’t many dry eyes in the hall as the film was shown, it isn’t too much to expect. Taare Zameen Par is a triumph, and God bless Aamir Khan for it.

In Defense of Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson’s reputation has taken a terrible beating over the last few years. The other Founding Fathers – John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington – all have their modern-day champions; Jefferson’s champions, though, are in retreat, no longer able to evade or sweep aside the central, terrible contradiction at the core of his life: that the author of the noblest phrases ever penned in the English language about equality, and liberty, and self-governance, held other human beings in bondage. The apparent confirmation of long-standing rumors regarding his relationship with Sally Hemings through DNA test tends to show him in an even worse light.

But it would be worse than ironic; it would be deeply unfortunate, if we use these revelations to drive the final nail in the Jeffersonian coffin, if we take this as an opportunity to collectively and firmly turn our back on Jefferson, Jeffersonian ideals, and the Jeffersonian vision. He still has much to teach us. Now that the darkest corners of Jefferson’s life has been thrown open to public view, we can look at the entirety of that life, and we can see perhaps more clearly than before the final irony—that Thomas Jefferson did more to end slavery in the United States than anyone else in American history with the single exception of Abraham Lincoln (who, not coincidentally, took Jefferson as his guiding light). We need to learn – as Lincoln, and others in the generations before us, learned –how to love Jeffersonian ideals and the Jeffersonian vision (and, perhaps, even Jefferson himself) and to hate slavery. We need to understand how his words, ideas and efforts helped to create a world in which the very notion that one person can “own” another is almost universally viewed as beyond the pale of civilized human behaviour.

Jefferson was no hypocrite when it came to the slavery question – even his most fervent detractors have to admit as much. His public and private writings throughout his life make it clear that he held the institution of slavery to be an abomination, its practice immoral and fundamentally inconsistent with his ideas about the natural rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He loathed slavery – this “great political and moral evil,” he called it in the only book he published in his lifetime, Notes on Virginia. “The commerce between master and slave,” he wrote in this book, is “a perpetual exercise of the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. . . The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.” He further asserted in the same book, “With what execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, . . . can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?...Indeed I tremble for my country when reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever . . . The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.” “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate,” he wrote about the slaves in his autobiography, “than that these people are to be free.” It was not without a reason that historian C. Vann Woodward opined that no passages in Jefferson’s incredibly voluminous papers are, “more moving or more poignant” than those denouncing slavery.

But actions, as the saying goes, speak louder than words. Did Jefferson actually do anything to end slavery?

In 1769, while a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, Jefferson prepared a bill to abolish the importation of slaves in Virginia, and also to free the existing slaves. But he was unsuccessful. In 1770, he argued in the now obscure Howell vs. Netherland case, in which a third-generation slave mulatto named Samuel Howell was fighting to gain freedom. Jefferson took up his case, without charging any fee, and pled before the court to liberate him, as all men are born with inalienable rights to freedom. The court dismissed his argument, and Howell had to live on as a slave, but Jefferson’s attempt to fight for a “nigger” without any fee was not something anybody did before him, nor was it emulated by too many after him.

Jefferson prepared not one but two drafts of a Constitution for the State of Virginia, one in 1776, and one in 1783. The earlier draft would have prohibited the importation of slaves into the State: “No person hereafter coming into this county shall be held within the same in slavery under any pretext whatever.” The 1783 draft went further: “The General assembly shall not have to power to ... permit the introduction of any more slaves to reside in this state, or the continuance of slavery beyond the generation which shall be living on the 31st day of December 1800; all persons born after that day being hereby declared free.” These documents are rightly regarded as important developments in the history of the termination of slavery. In 1778, Jefferson’s 1769 bill of prohibiting further importation of slaves into Virginia was finally passed. Although this did not bring complete emancipation, in his words, it “stopped the increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts its final eradication.”

In 1784, Jefferson's draft of what became the Northwest Ordinance stipulated that “there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude” in any of the new states admitted to the Union from the Northwest Territory. This provision lost—by a single vote! The bill required seven votes in order to be passed, and secured six. New Jersey would have supported the prohibition but its delegate, James Beatty, was ill and did not attend the session. Jefferson later wrote in his autobiography: “Seven votes being requisite to decide the proposition affirmatively, it was lost. The voice of a single individual of the State which was divided [New Jersey] . . . would have prevented this abominable crime from spreading itself over the new country. Thus we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man, and Heaven was silent in that awful moment! But it is to be hoped it will not always be silent, and that the friends to the rights of human nature will in the end prevail.” And indeed, they did prevail, when in 1787, the Northwest Ordinance was passed, banning slavery in the states in the North-western region of America. This ordinance was based on Jefferson’s 1784 bill.

The greatest of his anti-slavery gestures was his introducing and signing of an Act banning slave trade with Africa in 1808, as the President of the USA. He congratulated his fellow politicians for helping him to “withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have long been eager to proscribe.”

Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia is a masterpiece of American literature. It was the first comprehensive account of the conditions of life in Virginia (and, by extension, the USA). It covered everything from the navigability of each of Virginia’s rivers, the names of each the 101 bird species then known to inhabit the State, seasonal changes in wind and rainfall patterns across the State, and the location of all known deposits of valuable minerals, to a complete catalogue of the laws of Virginia and the history of its settlement.
Its passages on slavery (some of which have been quoted at the beginning of this essay) had been lauded by John Adams as “worth more than diamonds, and will have more effect than volumes written by mere philosophers.” In this book, Jefferson did more than merely state his opposition to slavery, which was already well-known at the time; he suggested that the country was already moving, inexorably, guided by the Almighty Himself, towards liberation. “I think a change already perceptible, since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation,” he proclaimed.

Such sentiments were revolutionary for their times, and ensured that the book would receive a chilly reception among the Virginia establishment. That is why Jefferson was unwilling to publish it at first. “I fear that the terms in which I speak of slavery may produce an irritation which will revolt the minds of our countrymen against reformation, and indispose the people towards the great object I have in view – that is, the emancipation of their slaves – and thus do more harm than good,” he wrote to James Madison. It was only when he was reassured by his two most trusted Virginia confidantes – Madison and James Monroe – that it would not have that unfortunate effect, did he agree to a small private printing; believing that both its “political and physical parts” might “set our young students into a useful train of thought,” he subsequently distributed one copy “to every young man at William and Mary College, for it is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not to the one now in power, for these great reformations.”

Then, of course, there was the Declaration of Independence itself. Apart from the now instantly recognizable words—“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”—the document also had other parts in which Jefferson attacked the practice of slavery with greater vigour and passion than any of his peers could think of, let alone muster. For instance, in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote scathingly about the British king George III and his colonial rule: “He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.”
This passage, like the anti-slavery provisions in Jefferson’s draft of the Ordinance of 1784, was deleted by Congress before final approval of the Declaration, on the request of the delegates of South Carolina and Georgia. But Jefferson took enormous pains later in life to preserve it, to make sure that history knew that in his Declaration of Independence, slavery was deemed “cruel war against human nature itself,” that this “execrable commerce” in human souls violated the “most sacred rights of life and liberty.” Jefferson’s use of the word “MEN” to describe the slaves established beyond any question that at least to him, they were human beings. Had the Congress agreed to keep this phrase, it is likely that slavery would have become illegal in the United States shortly after the Revolutionary War. Instead, since slaves were not clearly designated as “MEN”, they remained defined as property—a terrible but unanimously acknowledged legal designation for the slaves that denied them their “inalienable rights” for nearly a century.
Not to mention “the pursuit of happiness.” Jefferson’s use of this phrase in the list of natural rights – “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” – has long been something of a puzzle. “Life, liberty, and property” was the conventional formulation; the revolutionary generation’s favorite political philosopher, John Locke, had established that familiar trilogy almost a century before. The 1774 Declaration of Rights, drafted two years before Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, also followed the Lockean outline, saying that the people of America were “entitled to life, liberty and property.” That formulation was, for obvious reasons, of considerable comfort to the slave-owning class, for it put their “ownership” of slaves—their “property” interest—on equal rank, in the natural order of things, with the “life” and “liberty” of those over whom that ownership was exercised.
But with one stroke of the pen, Jefferson took that away. Whatever comfort one might have taken in the notion that owning other human beings was in the natural order of things – a widespread view in the eighteenth century – that notion was not to be found in the Declaration of Independence. In Jefferson’s republic, what must accompany life and liberty was happiness, or at least the right to pursue it. In other words, Jefferson subtly hinted that even the slaves had the right to look for happiness, which, needless to say, could not be experienced as long as one remained subservient to another. Hence, slavery must go. Thanks to Jefferson’s substituting the word “property” with the words “pursuit of happiness,” human beings could no longer be considered the same as livestock or goods.

Some historians have accused Jefferson of having a paternalistic, condescending view of the black people. Stephen Ambrose, for example, said that Jefferson, like other slaveholders, considered the blacks to be “inferior, childlike, and untrustworthy.” He is also said to have believed that though the slaves should be liberated, they cannot live in the same country as the whites. His solution seems to have been for slaves to be freed, and then deported peacefully. These criticisms are not unfounded; Jefferson, at least during his earlier years, did hold such views about the blacks. But given the times he lived in, when almost every white person was convinced of his racial superiority, and made it a point to drill it into the minds of the posterity, it was not unnatural to acquire a somewhat derogatory view of the blacks. It was to Jefferson’s credit that despite being lectured on the inferiority of the blacks, he believed in their right to be free. More importantly, if he had any doubts about the intellectual capacity of the blacks, he certainly repudiated his views later in life. This is best exemplified in the letter he wrote to the French author Monsieur Gregoire on 25th February, 1809. The letter is quoted below:
“Sir,--I have received the favor of your letter of August 17th, and with it the volume you were so kind to send me on the “Literature of Negroes.” Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself entertained and expressed on the grade of understanding allotted to them by nature, and to find that in this respect they are on a par with ourselves. My doubts were the result of personal observation on the limited sphere of my own State, where the opportunity for the development of their genius were not favorable and those of exercising it still less so. I expressed them therefore with great hesitation; but whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others. On this subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making toward their re-establishment on an equal footing with the other colors of the human family. I pray you therefore to accept my thanks for the many instances you have enabled me to observe of respectable intelligence in that race of men, which cannot fail to have effect in hastening the day of their relief; and to be assured of the sentiments of high and just esteem and consideration which I tender to yourself with all sincerity.”
He is even more explicit in another letter: “I have supposed the black man in his present state might not be equal to the white man; but it would be hazardous to affirm that equally cultivated for a few generations, he would not become so.”

But why, it may be asked, did he not free his own slaves? Jefferson was a slaveholder by inheritance, and he was prohibited by Virginia law from freeing them. Manumission was a more complex and difficult process in 18th century Virginia than most of us understand; you couldn’t simply announce that slaves, individually or as a group, were free. Just as it was a punishable offence for a slave to run away from his master, so was it for a master to suddenly liberate one or more of his slaves. That is why Jefferson tried so hard, during his political career, to hasten the emancipation process. He was scared that if he started to free his slaves without passing a law to that effect, his reputation, together with his political career, would be jeopardized, and with it would end all hope of bringing about emancipation. As celebrated historian Joseph Ellis notes, there were “few quicker and surer ways to stop a political career in its tracks in Jefferson’s time than to oppose white conquest of western lands in the name of Indian rights or to advocate the abolition of slavery.” Moreover, Jefferson’s financial conditions were often in a poor state. He was deep in debt, and was prevented by his family to free the slaves, for that would push them into harder economic conditions. He suffered from severe pangs and trials of conscience as a result, which have been poignantly enumerated in Christopher Hitchens’s Author of America: Thomas Jefferson. Captain Edmund Bacon, overseer at Monticello from 1806-22, noted after Jefferson’s death, “I think he would have freed all of them if his affairs had not been so much involved that he could not do it.” He also spoke of Jefferson’s kindness towards the slaves: “Mr. Jefferson was always very kind and indulgent to his servants. . . He would hardly ever allow one of them to be whipped.” Though Monticello was deeply in debt at the time of Jefferson’s death, in his will he arranged for the freedom of five of his slaves.

True, he could have set more examples in freeing slaves than he did. Perhaps he should have shown more boldness in defying the social conventions of his times. But it is, we must remember, easier to sermonize thus in present times, than to actually live and operate within the strictures of Jefferson’s era. The decisions and activities of great men should be judged in the context of the time they lived in. Jefferson was undoubtedly much more progressive and liberal on the issue of slavery than many of his contemporaries, even if the strictures I mentioned above prevented him on more than one occasions to practice what he preached. We’ll never know, for certain, how much further he could have pushed, how much more he could have done. Hence, to question his greatness on the basis of this would be unfortunate.

It is tempting, very tempting, to dismiss from our more enlightened 21st century viewpoint, to dismiss Jefferson as a hypocrite. In fact it seems to have become a badge of intellectual honour these days to do so; the politically correct historical revisionist crowd devotes considerable time and energy in singling out Jefferson for scorn for the apparent dichotomy between his public rhetoric and personal actions. I have tried my best to explain this dichotomy in the two paragraphs preceeding this one; I haven’t said that it was okay for Jefferson to be a slave-owner, but have endeavoured to show that he wanted to liberate his slaves, but couldn’t because of the various social and legal restrictions imposed not just on the slaves but their masters too. That is why he preached so vociferously against slavery in his public and political life, so that the idea of blacks deserving as much dignity and liberty as the whites would become more popular, and emancipation be brought about more swiftly, and he could be free of the guilt conscience of keeping slaves. He pinned much of his hopes on the future generation, who, he believed, would have a more favourable situation to wage the war against slavery. I would like to remind the readers that after passing the 1778 bill that prevented bringing any more slaves into Virginia, Jefferson expressed his hope that the complete eradication of slavery would be brought about by “future efforts.” Similarly, while distributing copies of Notes on Virginia among college students, he said that he considered these youths to be the ones who were likely to introduce the “great reformations” he dreamed of. And indeed, it was Lincoln, one of his successors to the Presidential office, a part of the new generation, who finally freed the slaves. Lincoln’s decision to do so in 1863 led to a prolonged and bloody civil war, and this was thirty seven years after Jefferson’s death. So, one can easily understand the highly anti-emancipation environment in which Jefferson had to live. Given this, are Jefferson’s efforts and achievements against slavery not laudable?
Jefferson’s lasting importance lies in his singular effort to take some of the most unsettling ideas of the Enlightenment and put them to the test in the highest reaches of American politics. By doing so, he helped to infuse the political life—not just that of his country, but of the entire world—with egalitarian and democratic principles that exploded in the nineteenth century and are still very much alive. At a time when most people were firmly on the side on slave trade, when it was practiced by almost all the western nations, slavery was torn asunder in the historical blink of an eye by Jefferson when he penned those unforgettable words of the Declaration of Independence. The general acceptance of an institution with roots thousands of years in the past was suddenly questioned and criticized. There is no doubt that the Declaration set in motion a chain of events that would lead, in as straight a line as history ever gives us, to emancipation.

Nobody understood this better than Lincoln, and nobody wrote a better critique of Jefferson’s detractors than him. Calling Jefferson’s ideals the “definitions and axioms of free society,” he lamented that these ideals “are denied and evaded, with no small show of success.” “We must repulse,” he wrote, those who would “insidiously argue” that the words of the Declaration of Independence are just “glittering generalities” or “self-evident lies,” for they are the “vanguard—the miners and sappers—of returning despotism." Lincoln’s conclusion can well be that of this essay: “All honor to Jefferson--to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.” To that, all that I can say is a loud “Amen.”