Taare Zameen Par: City's special kid gets NSD stage

SURAT: A 13-year-old dyslexic boy, who can't read or write in Hindi or recognise any of the alphabets of Devnagari, speaks fluent Hindi for a three-hour play - 'Ek Baat Ankahi'. Parth Desai is a student of Prayas - a Centre for Holistic Education in the city, and along with his friends and tutors will be performing on the stage of National School of Drama (NSD), Delhi on October 13. Not many able artistes from thediamond city have managed to reach this far, but Parth and his team has donethis, reminding everyone of the path-breaking film 'Taare Zameen Par'. It willalso be the first time in the history of Surat theatre that a children's playconceptualised in the city will have the honour of being performed on the NSDstage. So far, only Kapil Dev Shukla has managed to perform on theNSD stage in 2003 and 2004 during Bharatiya Raang Mahotsav. Now, it is the teamof Prayas and Sparsh portraying the travails and trauma that a learning disabledchild encounters in his life that will represent diamond city in Jashn-e-Bachpanat NSD. "With about 90,000 children suffering from learningdisability, it has become essential for us to knock at the doors of educators,reformists, parents and society at large in understanding a learning disabledchild," said Balasaraswathy Nair, director of Prayas. "We decided to portraythis on stage and formed a team with Sparsh and Disha, two other organisationsworking in the field," said Nair, who is also principal of Anand Niketan Schoolin the city. Mortaza Railwaywala, who has directed the play, said,"Dyslexia (reading handicap), dysgraphia (writing handicap), dyscalculia(problem in mathematics), dyspraxia (spatial handicap) are all complex problemsand conditions in the pediatric society and have no simple solutions. But, ifthere is a will, there is a way." Parth is a specially gifted child,who was taught his dialogues by repeated conversation of the same by his mother,teacher and co-actors. Now, he is doing this so efficiently that the audiencedoes not even think that he suffers from learning disability. Nairsaid, "The message we want to send across is - Tare hamari zameen par bhi hai.All we need is to identify and nourish them to shine and excel."