When the couple first came to the Tulip school in 2002, Taare Zameen Par was still called and registered as High Jump, which was later changed lest the audience mistook it for a sports film. “Amole and I had been working on a film script about children with learning difficulties since 1998. We had already met several teachers, special educators, parents and children but the picture in our minds wasn’t clear when a common friend suggested that we come here,” says Deepa.

The experiences that they carried back wove itself into the story that today has many parents and teachers thinking again. “In the beginning we had imagined that the time we were spending with the children was the means to an end —our script. The equation has changed radically,” says Deepa. It’s a commitment that impressed producer-director Aamir Khan. In the promo-book of the film, he says, “Having spent almost seven years in close contact with children, Amole had a story to tell—a story that he nurtured for over two years, and was born out of his close association with children and what I see as his love of childhood.”

That love shines through in the movie, even in its sometimes didactic dialogue. “The film asks parents not to judge. Its wandering eye also catches kids in all age groups and situations—from an infant to the tea boy. It captures the complete range in a classroom, with its mix of the errant, the attentive and the snobbish. Ishaan’s story is just a bridge to childhood,” says Gupte for whom making the film was also a personal challenge to rise to standards set by masters like Ghatak, Damle and Fatehlal.

... contd.