Why the look, feel and treatment of "Stanley Ka Dabba" looks exactly similar to "Taare Zameen Par"?

This write up is neither meant to hurt anybody nor intentionally written to degrade the creative capabilities of any particular person. But its just a truthful account of what I felt while watching the first look trailer of an upcoming children film “Stanley Ka Dabba”.

We know Aamir Khan directed the famous and well acclaimed film, “Taare Zameen Par” and surprised both his fans and people within the industry with his impeccable sensitive handling of the subject. The film went on to win hearts left and right and is now considered to be a milestone trendsetter project of the Hindi Film Industry.

But within that thundering applause the film received in its first few weeks, the feeble sound of a controversy couldn’t be heard related to a person named AMOL GUPTE who very quietly indicated that the movie was actually his brain child and a result of his years long work and experience with all those special children. He did not come forward very strongly on this but silently accepted whatever praise was offered to him for his work or may be stepped backward due to any other unknown reason. Here it has to be mentioned that Amol Gupte was credited in “Taare Zameen Par” as the Creative Director, Story, Screenplay & Dialogue writer of the film, which means making a lot of contribution in the film and its making.

However before this news, nobody even knew who was this Amol Gupte and may be that was the reason why the news of his claim quickly faded off and everybody just forgot having heard anything controversial about the film.

But now as you watch the Theatrical Trailer of “STANLEY KA DABBA”, the very first thought which comes to your mind is that, Is this a sequel to “TAARE ZAMEEN PAR”? or Is this film in anyway related to TZP?

The thought arises in your mind because surprisingly each scene, framework, shot taking technique, feel and look of STANTEY KA DABBA, looks exactly similar to TAARE ZAMEEN PAR. The film at once reminds you of all the children and their scenes shot within their school as seen in TZP. Their innocently spoken dialogues and sound of collective noise in the school corridors exactly looks like a deleted, unseen scene from TZP.

And this conflict of mind gets cleared, the moment, director’s name comes on the screen, which says, STANLEY KA DABBA - Directed by Amol Gupte.

The name reminds you of the controversy heard during the early days of TAARE ZAMEEN PAR and gives you a lot to think over, about the system and its working in Bollywood.

Now whether Aamir took over the project from Amol in the mid-way and enhanced it with his own creative inputs OR whether it was a Amol Gupte’s labour all the way, we don’t know. But at present the trailer of “STANLEY KA DABBA” strongly tell us that the director AMOL GUPTE did have a major – major role to play in the making of “TAARE ZAMEEN PAR”.

Do take a look at the Official Trailer of the film, at the following link and let me know about your views in the comments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdd9Y166JXY

(Interestingly, while writing this article as I visit the IMDB page of the film “TAARE ZAMEEN PAR”, it shows two names under the DIRECTOR credits……….and in front of Amol Gupte’s name it is written ‘Un-Credited’ in brackets!)

Cheers!