‘Aamir and I Were Never Close’

Amole Gupte, who almost got to direct Taare Zameen Par officially, is now ready with his very own Stanley Ka Dabba

A robust, precocious child, if not a prodigy, Amole Gupte, the 50-year-old who shot to fame as the writer-creative director of Taare Zameen Par in 2007, was a topper at Holy Family High School in suburban Mumbai in the 70s. Even today, he firmly believes that children show their natural talent quite early in life. “There’s a saying in Marathi, Baalache paay paalnat distat, which means a child reveals his feet in the pram,” says Amole, a writer, director, poet, painter and man with a rare gift of empathy with children. His life has been a rather long struggle in the “service of children” as he puts it, and the result of this is Stanley Ka Dabba—a quirky little film about children bonding over tiffin boxes. It features real-life schoolboys with real names, and was shot over extended cinema workshops that Amole conducts at his alma mater.

It all began in 2008, with a small frantic idea that was giving him sleepless nights. For some reason, Sapnon Ko Ginte Ginte, a film that Amole wanted to start first, fell through, leaving him disillusioned with the systems-that-be. In a span of seven or eight days, he wrote Stanley Ka Dabba and headed straight to his headmistress, Asha Kapoor, almost a second mother to him, for approval. Initially, his workshop sessions were aimed at acclimatising students to world cinema. Gradually, with the script in place, the sessions morphed into material that he actually used in the movie.

Amole insists that the central intention was to make the sessions possible, not the film. “I wouldn’t have cared if I hadn’t had a film at the end of it,” he says, adding that he didn’t force any kid to participate in this, not even his nine-year-old son, Partho, who is making his debut in the film.“Partho came in because he’s been my compatriot, accompanying me on my workshops since he was four,” he says.

Conducted on Saturdays, the sessions would last four to five hours. “We never shot on Sundays because we wanted the kids to be with their parents. There were no rules, no casting, nothing. The kids have their real names in the film. If a child decided not to come on a Saturday, it was alright and we worked our continuities according to their coming and going.”

Most of the adult cast, including Divya Dutta, Aditya Lakhia and Raj Zutshi, are Amole’s friends and participated in the project with gusto. “We couldn’t afford vanity vans and they didn’t ask for them either. They left their cars, spot boys and the works. So, whenever Divya Dutta would need water, she would fetch it herself. There was no taam-jhaam (starry airs).”

Amole plucked out Stanley from his own school days. It was a childhood, he reminisces, of intimate parent-child equations, open playgrounds and green spaces. He grew up at Bima Nagar in Andheri (East), in a flat they received thanks to his mother Anjali’s position at the insurance giant LIC. His father, Sudhakar, who belonged to one of the earliest batches of techies emerging from India, was a profound influence on Amole in his formative years. He would take his son to cultural events, classical music concerts and Marathi plays. “I had a wonderful school life, with wonderful friends. I don’t think that childhood can be re-experienced in this new era of computer games and 24-hour television because there’s little time for children to play outside. I don’t think they know what marbles are, except perhaps those growing up in the slums.” 

As a young boy, Amole expressed interest in various fields and his parents let him be, never imposing their opinions on him. “My father gave me complete attention and I was enriched by his values. He never questioned my actions and encouraged me to be what I wanted to be. This was his philosophy, and I’m just following what I was taught.”

Gupte thinks it’s time parents stop restricting kids and let their natural abilities take over. “You should really stop forcing your child to become what you want him to. You have to let the child be. If he/she has a love of writing, nobody can stop him/her from becoming a writer,” says Gupte  “No coach in the world would have taught Sachin Tendulkar how to wield a bat. He’s a natural.”

This was precisely the message that Taare Zameen Par sought to spread. Amole says he’s proud of the film and doesn’t regret the fact that Aamir took over from him mid-way due to creative differences and plastered his own name as the director. In the end, Amole had to remain content with the credit roll of writer-creative director.

“Look, I was satisfied with the film and the effect it had on people. The fact is that Aamir took it very far with his star power, which otherwise wouldn’t have reached [that far]. I am no fool. I understand that some relationships are of professional significance, and the reason I went to Aamir was because of that. Then why should I be cribbing? But I’m beyond that and I’ve moved on,” says Amole of Aamir whom he first met at Avantar, the theatre group of Mahendra Joshi at Mumbai’s NM College of Commerce. Those days, Amole was an actor, while Aamir was involved in backstage activities for a Gujarati play called Khelaiya.

After their very public fallout, Amole and Aamir haven’t spoken much. Amole maintains they were never close friends. “I was always closer to Mansoor (Aamir’s cousin whose short film he once acted in) than Aamir,” he says.  

Over the years, Amole has had an on-off relationship with cinema and theatre, but his involvement with children’s causes has been constant. He first burst upon the scene with Ketan Mehta’s Holi in 1984, only to prominently reappear with Taare Zameen Par and Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey (as an actor). He has a wildly critical attitude towards his work and feels his performance in last year’s Phas Gaye Re Obama wasn’t up to the mark. “I never approach a role the way an actor would with all his self-importance. I approach it as a student of cinema. For instance, I don’t know what I was doing in Phas Gaye Re Obama. I was wasted and I blame my own self for it.”

During the phases he was absent from movies, he was involved with Saraswati Mandir and Tulips, shelters for physically and mentally challenged children, and doing workshops for Parivartan, Apne Aap and Maharashtra Dyslexia Association. “And when I was involved in neither, I was painting,” he laughs, pointing towards some ink works at his Bandra office.

Aamir KhanAmole GupteStanley Ka Dabba