Star Cast of Sitaare Zameen Par: Rishab Jain (Raju) ,Gopi Krishnan Varma (Guddu), Aroush Dutta (Satbir), Rishi Shahani (Sharmajee), Ayush Bansali (Lotus) Naman Misra (Hargovind),Samvit Desai (Karim Qureshi),Vedant Sharma (Bantu),Ashish Pendse (Sunil Gupta) and Simran Mangeshkar (Golu Khan)
This star cast is what you carry home after watching this movie that educates, entertains and at times goes overboard. Don’t be preachy with me that I have not mentioned Amir Khan and other celebrities in this list, this movie was intended to zoom into the world of people with intellectual disabilities (Baudhik Ashamta in Hindi) if only it could keep up with this template and save itself from the oily Bollywood masala layers.What was supposed to illumine sitaare zameen par (stars on earth) up close the world of people with neurodegenerative disorder has not really broken through the Bollywood order. Despite its flaws the claim of an honest effort at compassionately striking the note of inclusivity can’t be outrightly rejected.
The tagline – Subka apna apna normal, apna apna shoq (Everybody has his normal and respective choices) holds the otherwise broken narrative after the second half. Amir Khan deserves accolades for bringing something new to the plate through this remake of Spanish sports movie-Champions. It tries to pick up from the gains Amir Khan made by taking the cinephiles from the razzmatazz of Hindi cinema to the world of students with learning disabilities through the prequel Taare Zameen Par. This sequel SZP being termed as the spirit of TZP is again far from the rage and riot earning blitzkrieg. At the face of it, the dramedy claims to offer some breathing space for theaters booming with machismo pride, male chauvinism and raunchy comedy. Even Amir Khan won’t mind it that performances of the 10 champions stands out against his own performance as an actor. In fact Amir’s over the top reactions in some of the scenes against the spontaneous flow of the protagonists resonates with the tagline- Sabka apna normal hota hain. Having said that, Amir craftily uses the nickname – Tingu he has earned from social media from his critics.
Amir as Gulshan Arora wears this moniker on his sleeves to let the world know that the superstar uses it as his normal.In the climax again, the players almost win it for their coach by using shorter height to their advantage against taller opponents. The film underlines the role of parents in supporting children with special abilities and assumes they are all doing it and calls for the society to look at them empathetically. Apparently it is an authentic attempt at being face to face with neurotypical people with disabilities like Autism, Down’s syndrome and Fragile X syndrome. No less authentic is the idea to educate people about the invisible autism and symptoms like various types of phobias associated with neurotypes.
The question is how exclusive to Bollywood rigmarole can any inclusive movie afford to be. Sitaare Zameen Par loses the plot when the real meets the unreal,where the deftness marries the clumsiness. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy music leaves a lot to be desired, background music by Ram Sampath is barrage, melophobic at places.The tale of ten characters with intellectual disability loses its sheen with one insensitive character Gulshan Arora played by Amir Khan who seems to have not-so-normal traits forced upon him.
His association with players and his relation with his spouse Sunita (Genelia) is bizarre. Sunita the love interest of Gulshan lives separately, hasn’t had her marital bliss but figures every now and then to keep Gulshan and his players in good humor. Against what Gulshan Arora (Amir) calls “men’s tall ego”, Sunita has put her acting prowess on hold instead helps his mother at her shop. In a movie in news for inclusiveness a woman is seen off and on prodding and cajoling one male ‘100 foot ka ego’. Archaic and pervert, isn’t it?Unlike the claim of the film makers, Sunita’s character doesn’t bring authenticity to the play rather mars it.
The writer has forced too many phobias on Gulshan (Amir) to play a savior to specially able basketball players. While His tokophobia impairs his normalcy in marriage, he is seen walking all the way to the top storeys because of escalophobia. The tagline, Humari qismat hathon pe nahi chromosome pe likh k aati hain (Our destiny isn’t written on our palms, it is written on our chromosomes) sounds pertinent. Truly all other characters have got their destiny written on chromosomes but Arora’s (Amir Khan) destiny of a hotchpotch character is written by his comrades to set-back soul of the movie.
Even the portrayal of one of the special characters defeats the very idea of such movie. One of the students, Karim Qureshi (Samvit Desai) exploited by his employer could have made for an interesting treatment but for the falling narrative. His frequent dishwashing insertions ultimately lead to financing airfare for the basketball finals. So this is how the makers deal with the issue of a challenged individual-by selling out his exploitation for a ‘noble’ cause through ignoble ways.
The movie that light-heartedly conveys a serious message for a major part shocks itself with a subplot ridden by a mishmash, Gulshan’s mother has to have an affair with her cook and her marriage in the climax. Again a new ‘normal’ forced upon the script as people can have affairs below their class but to marry down is a trick from masala baggage.
This film does, however, reflect shades of Amir Khan as a filmmaker but in patches. Saving grace of the storyline is the team of 10 players, when Gulshan’s team needs only one basket to win and with 20 seconds left, Kareem (Samvit Desai) tries a fancy move which misses. They finish second but the coach is again coached upon as the kids see success in failure and rejoice the victory of the people like them. Only Amir Khan can pull off such a scene in a sports dramedy wherein the protagonists can lose to let the film have some semblance of reality and yet engage the audience. As its theme goes, we have no right to call anyone-good for nothing. Same holds true for this movie.
Altaf Ahmad Khan, Alumnus MERC, University of Kashmir.
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