Taare Zameen Par with connection to Dyslexia

"A child is a gift of God, a blessing from above, a picture of purity and innocence."

While attending today's online conference on Covid-19: Opportunity to learn, explore and experiment organised by ELTA Telangana, I came across a presentation on Dyslexia and I suddenly remembered about the movie Taare Zameen Par which also talks about the issue of Dyslexia. I got to know many new things which I thought should connect with the movie.

 Firstly we shall discuss about what is dyslexia. The disorder with specific difficulties in reading was identified by Oswald Berkhan in 1881 and the term 'dyslexia' was coined in 1887 by Rudolf Berlin, a German Ophthalmologist practising in Stuttgart, Germany. He used the term to refer to a case of a young boy who had a severe impairment in learning to read and write in spite of showing normal intellectual and physical abilities in all other aspects. Brain takes longer to make some connections and does it in more steps. It especially has trouble matching the letters you see on the page with the sounds those letters and combinations of letters make. (b-d) (top-pot) (mirror image of words) (animal- animl, anml, enaml).

There are 5 types of Dyslexia- Trauma dyslexia, Primary dyslexia, Developmental dyslexia, Visual dyslexia and Phonological dyslexia. There is no cure for it but students can succeed in school or later in life with the assistance of teachers, school accommodations and modifications, support of family and appropriate intervention and instruction.

Children with this kind of learning disabilities are not accepted by the society. They are left behind in academics, they cannot participate in school activities and they also don't have friends or may have 1 or 2 friends only. Dyslexia is a neurological disorder as the brain is not able to process the visual matter effectively. So the child experiences problems to interpret letters, shapes, numbers or any other visual material. Such children maybe intelligent also but cannot express their intelligence in tests. Many people in today's time are not able to understand or accept or maybe do not have knowledge about this problem. If their child does not perform well, they scold them and label the as 'useless', 'dull', 'duffer' and what not. Everyone wants their child to become successful. Some children who are gifted (we do not use the word disabled) face too much pressure from their parents, peers, school that they get emotionally detached from them. Parents should understand that their child is gifted who has a special ability to study and interpret images. They may not be genius in academics but can master other skills like Ishaan in Taare Zameen Par.

Taare Zameen Par is a 2007 released bollywood movie directed and produced by Aamir Khan. The film revolves around the life of a 8 year old boy Ishaan Awasthi (starring Darsheel Safary) who is suffering from Dyslexia. This movie has a wonderful tagline- 'Every child is special.' This indicates that every parent has to understand then only they can discover the uniqueness of their own child. Ishaan, a boy who finds it difficult to match his world of colours, kites and animals to that of the other of his age group who are more into studies and homework. He does not perform well in school and when complaints start coming in large numbers, he is sent to boarding school. There is no difference in his regular school and the boarding school. He is constantly insulted and beaten by his teachers and becomes a laughing stock of the class. He feels lonely and inferior. He finds it difficult to overcome his problem. After some time, Mr. Nikumbh (arts teacher) arrives who realises that he is suffering from dyslexia and tries to help him in every way possible. He makes everyone understand his problem and request them to behave normally with him. He makes everyone realise that he is a special child with unique talent. With time, patience love and care from Nikumbh, Ishaan succeeds in overcoming his inability and gain confidence.

" Every child comes with a message that God is not discouraged of man. Every child is a star on Earth, is special who cleanses the soul, an empty canvas, waiting to be painted with love."

                                     - Rabindranath Tagore

1) Ishaan is a skilful, adventurous, artistic, lovely, sensitive, nature lover and lives in the world of fantasies. He can solve puzzles easily, can paint, can understand poetry (he tells the meaning of a stanza from Hindi poem during class). His problem is he cannot read, write, calculate (surprise maths test), is not able to memorise or answer, cannot follow instructions fastly (when he is instructed to open a particular page number and read a particular paragraph and line). When he fails to do something or he is scolded by someone for something, he feels angry, lonely, abandoned and frustrated at times which can be seen when he kicks the flower pots. He lacks motor skills as he cannot know his tie or tie his shoelaces properly. 

                                                       Ishaan's Painting

2) One of the scene shows large insects moving out of Ishaan's bag to reveal that books and studies seem to be scary to him. 

3) Dyslexics have poor time management, get easily distracted and might lose their sense of time. This thing is shown in the movie when Ishaan forgets to board his school bus and the conductor gets him to the bus. At that time Ishaan is fascinated by the fishes in the school pond.

                         

4) According to Sally S. (2013), Dyslexics have 'vivid imaginations'. They are disoriented in time and space. They are known to be "right brain dominant." This can be seen when Ishaan and his classmates are given a surprise maths test where he does not know what to do. He stares at one question and then goes away in his imagination. While be comes back to reality, he is able to solve only one question which is also incorrect (3×9= 3).  ( VIDEO LINK IN THE BRACKET)

5) BDA (2007) "With proper teaching methods, dyslexics could cope with daily life and in school. However, dyslexia is permanent and cannot be outgrown." This is shown when Ishaan is sent to boarding school where he meets his arts teacher Mr. Nikumbh who helps him in every way possible and uses specialised teaching methods to help him learn better and in the end, he shows tremendous improvement and scores higher grades in all the subjects.

6) Mr. Nikumbh is also shown to be working with children with special needs in another school where he interacts with them on a very simple level ( with love and care). Those students perform in a function which is a very heart touching emotional moment. This shows that children (facing these types of problems)  can overcome these struggles if they are treated in the right way.

7) When Ishaan's parents come to know about his condition, his father comes to meet Mr. Nikumbh and says that they do care for him as his mother has been doing online research on dyslexia. But here, Mr. Nikumbh very gently makes him understand what caring actually is ("khayal karna is ko kehte hai na? Muje ye sun kar khushi hui ki aapko lagta hai ki aap khayal karte hai.") He says that parents' responsibilities don't end with providing the best educational options or materialistic comforts or a luxurious lifestyle. Taking care of your child means to comfort him, be with him when he needs you the most, motivate him when he is dejected, just a hug or kiss is enough to show that you really care.

8) Another thing Nikumbh tells him of Solomon Islands where people don't cut off an unwanted tree but gather around cursing it and indirectly it dies after some time. The same is with a person. Words can make or break a person. A slap will never have the same effect that harsh words have.

9) Some famous dyslexic people are Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Agatha Christie, Walt Disney.