Meet the boy who made L K Advani cry

Darsheel Safary, the child star of Taare Zameen Par, is being mobbed 24 x 7. While his parents struggle to keep the mob at bay, we catch up with the family.

One is losing count of the many unlikely people who have cried during Taare Zameen Par. Even if you begin watching the film with the grim determination that you won�t cry, 15 minutes in you feel your face crumpling. Ishaan Awasthi taps into our shallowest lode of tears, prodding at our collective sense of an unloved childhood.

Darsheel Safary, the 10-year-old who played Ishaan, is cut from a very different cloth. And he gives rise to as much speculation about the nature of childhood as Ishaan does. "I have heard the kid is spoilt now," say even the most kindly, disinclined-to-gossip adult. So when the first thing you see at Darsheel's south Mumbai home is his aunt and cousin watching him on the news, it is not as surreal as it could have been.

Ten minutes later, Darsheel returns from school with his mother and younger sister. He is the quintessential schoolboy, jaunty even under a huge schoolbag. The living room suddenly seems awash with children. Darsheel's five-year-old sister, Nejvi, and cousin, Priyanj, are big contenders in the cuteness stakes. Darsheel, the boy who made L K Advani cry, is only cute for professional requirements, timing a split-second wistful smile for the camera and then returning to whatever he is fiddling with. The interview is a mild, unavoidable nuisance.

A young woman from the PR company, Anita (name changed), comes in. Why should one be surprised that Darsheel, like the rest of the cast of TZP, is handled by a PR company? On this particular day, the Safarys are more than ordinarily grateful for Anita's presence. The phone is ringing off the hook because of the 'controversy.' The previous day, Darsheel had received the Star Screen Award for Best Child Actor, but was reported as saying he wanted the Best Actor Award (the one Shah Rukh Khan took home). His actual statement became inconsequential as the media pounced.

One Gujarati paper reported, in the knowing manner of a wealthy aunt, that the Safarys, once an average Gujarati family, were now getting too big for their boots. There was no acknowledgement that a child's casual response at getting a shiny award might have been blown out of proportion.

Sheetal Safary may not have wanted any more press for her son, but she did want him fed, dressed and ready for the tutor who was arriving shortly. She and Anita join forces to expedite the interview. Darsheel is already irritated. In school, some of the older kids had taunted him, "Oh, you want to become Shah Rukh now?" He had got away with his dignity intact, but is feeling mulish now. His school has decided to organise a felicitation ceremony for him that evening but he is disincline to court more trouble. "I don't want to go for the function," he says. But Sheetal thinks he should attend.

"Write this down," Darsheel instructs. "I hate girls pinching my cheeks." Every interviewer has heard this. Is he getting harassed at school? "Yes, all the time," he says, with the ease of a well-protected child. His classmates are "cool"; it is the rest of the school he is irritated with. "I am mobbed, mobbed, mobbed."He proceeds to describe how he "runs from the mobs", which involves racing from floor to floor of the school, very much like an old-fashioned video game character. Then, in fits and bursts, Darsheel says is much better than Beowulf, Roald Dahl is good, while Harry Potter is boring, and that he likes Hrithik Roshan better than Aamir Khan. But by now, a month after TZP's release, Mumbai taxi drivers can tell you that.

He says he did not study much while on the film�s sets. Watchful Anita, sitting on a couch nearby, interrupts: "Don't lie. Didn't you have a tutor?" Darsheel brightens. Here is a duel for him. "No, no, no," he says. Some lukewarm name-calling later, he returns to the interview.

He says he joined the Shiamak Dawar dance classes (where he was 'discovered') when he was four. His aunt jumps in to say that he had been six. �Four,� he says. �Six,� insists his aunt. The casual disagreement under the eye of a reporter ruffles his aunt and she stops talking. Sensing her upset, Darsheel is quick to grin and concede.

Suddenly one sees Darsheel the actor, who dug around in the experiences of his short lifetime to bring to the screen a vulnerable, sensitive child very different from his sturdy, self-assured self. Unlike Ishaan, who looked to older brother Yohaan for protection, first-born Darsheel treats his siblings with lordly kindness. He tucks Nejvi and Priyanj under his arms grandly and asks the photographer to take a picture. He asks adults riddles and wants to know if their inability to answer is because of stupidity or dyslexia. He drives his mother to the edge and then settles down to do what she needs him to. What does she want now�an interview, tuitions, a meal, a change of clothes? Sure.