OK, OK, it took me ages to write about one of the finest Hindi films I have seen, my apologies for the delay.

So quickly let me get down to brass tacks and tell you all what I liked about the movie (I really can’t think of what I didn’t like about it).

One, the child actor. Darsheel Safary is incredible, and chews up the accomplished Aamir Khan effortlessly.

Actually, full marks to Aamir for letting himself be eaten up by a bachcha. It’s irresistible for actor-directors to push themselves in each and every frame, give themselves the best lines, the best shots, everything. Even someone as talented as Kamal Haasan has fallen pray to this in that obnoxious Abhay and middling Hey Ram; so I did expect a kind of Aamir hagiography with TZP, and was more than pleasantly surprised to see him take the backseat as the actor.

And in that lies his triumph as director, in his willingness, ability to put himself in the background and let the script score. It takes enormous courage, self-confidence to be able to do that, believe you me. Sure, I was getting a little fidgety waiting for Aamir to make his entry, after all I had gone to see an Aamir film, not a child-actor’s, and was blown when the actor makes an appearance at the intermission stage. Wah ustad!

What was Tisca Chopra doing in the film, I really couldn’t figure out, but let that be.

I loved the father’s characterisation, clichéd as it may seem. The poor sod thinks he knows everything, has all the answers, but realises he really doesn’t, and struggles with his inadequacies as only fathers can. Who said being Superman is easy!

And the atypical climax.. After a 45-minute long climax in Lagaan, nothing Aamir does will surprise me, but even then only he can have the courage to have something so non-climactic as a painting contest as the, well, climax, and make it work. Full marks for that.

But tell me, at the end of the day, can the film be complete, so memorable, without the awesome paintings by Samir Mondal? Those bold brushstrokes, mind-blowing use of colours, I mean, does any other contemporary painter even come close! So you know my real hero of TZP isJ