As a daily language device, metaphor is one of figurative language forms, which means words or expressions that mean something different from their literal definition.

Taare Zameen Par in English will be translated literally as “stars on Earth”. It explains the film within the context. It is stated once again that metaphors are not only in the form of language—linguistic, but also in everyday life form: thought or action. Therefore, verbal and visual are found which eventually led to the final statement that the film itself is a metaphor.

Verbal Metaphorical

When Ram Shankar Nikumbh said to his co-worker, Jabeen, that the boy (Ishaan Awasthi) was in danger, he just performed the verbal metaphor.

“Mujhe dar hai, vah doob jaega.”
(I’m afraid, he will be drown)

He used the word “drown” to explain the potential future that might happen to Ishaan, if he was let be without given any help. As in verbal metaphors, it is connotations rather than denotations of source domains that get mapped in metaphors, and these may substantially differ from one (sub)cultural group to another (see e.g., Maalej 2001). Nikumbh’s utterance was a connotation, a figurative word.

Visual Metaphor

Throughout the film, we are served with various scenes which reflect Ishaan emotions. All those particular scenes conveyed the emotions of a young kid with his dyslexia. They show us how frustrating it was for Ishaan to get through everything without anyone seeming to understand.

Ishaan’s dyslexia

Spider-letters crawled into Ishaan’s class

All those scenes that show Ishaan frustration and the scenes of Ishaan’s cartoon-like imagination are examples of how metaphors work in a film. Certain symbols, scenes, or any visualization almost always carry a certain message. In general, visual metaphors are integrated into other discourses (images in advertisements, cartoons in the press), and the readers know that these images are intended to communicate specific, non-denotative information, and hence they will not be cognitively satisfied at a purely denotative level (Yus, 2009).

The film after all delivers the audiences the pragmatics message—the filmmaker tries to tell us a message. From all the things that have been stated and explained previously, we can conclude that:

  1. Metaphors are not only used in the linguistic field. It is also used in film as the medium and many
    other things. Metaphor is basically found everywhere and that’s why there is something
    called “multimodal metaphor”.
  2. Taare Zameen Par is a good film to spread awareness about dyslexia. A kid with dyslexia
    hardly able to understand things around him, yet it doesn’t make the kid’s intelligence
    below average. It is shown throughout the film, the struggle of Ishaan. Many scenes show
    how frustrated he was. Those scenes might only half take place in the real world. The rest
    are the visual metaphor of Ishaan’s mental condition. The verbal metaphor uttered by
    Nikumbh emphasized the atmosphere and the feeling of this film. The future that might
    await for Ishaan. Nothing felt more than that dyslexia, and other gifts are a real deal.
  3. Eventually, the metaphor “every child is a star” is used in this film. The fact that Ishaan’s
    brother is good at academics as well as sports is one example. Ishaan, however, is another
    example. With his dyslexia being “fixed”, he showed everyone that he was as clever as he
    supposed to be. It is shown that Ishaan is talented in drawing and painting. The message
    is written there clearly, that one kid is different from another kid. This also means that not
    every kid has the same talent, or gift, but they are still special.