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I was shooting at the Rhodesia House, a dormitory of St. Peters School, Panchgani. Rhodesia House fits approximately 40 boys under the charge of a matron….this house accommodates the youngest (7 to 8 years) students. Being a boarding school, the admission at St. Peters starts from 3rd Std.
Every time I watch TZP promo on tv, I get nostalgic with the first film(AV) which I made as a director….every frame of little, innocent students reminds me of similar shots taken by me, exploring various dorms of St. Peters.

Being known as European Boys’ School before independence, St. Peters has very glorious past and presence….apart from many governors and business tycoons, our legendary rock superstar Freddie Mercury, from band ‘Queen’ was one of the alumni from the 1958 batch.

Bruce Murray (lead vocals)
Victory Rana
Farrokh Bulsara (piano)
Farang Irani
Derrick Branche

His period as a student is also a history for the school. Panchgani as a place is famous for its boarding schools….u’ll find a boarding school at every 25 steps…St. Peters was famous for sports among all the school those days…Freddie(His actual Indian name was Farrokh Bulsara in school records) brought a revolution of music with his band called “The Hectics”(pic. attached, Freddie in center)…the school which was known for sports was taken over by music….I met three of the band members of “The Hectics” during the centenary and spoke about Freddie whom they used to call bucktooth…well thats a vast topic to discuss..

…so it was Oct 2004, St Peters was preparing to celebrate their centenary in couple of months….my friend who was managing this event came with an unfinished AV to me saying that she is not satisfied with the feel of the film…she needed more punch and something emotional for the alumni who were suppose to attend the event from worldwide…she wanted my suggestions and we ended up deciding that I’ll complete the remaining film….

..we shot various parts and montages for the AV(attached in three parts)…mainly the Part-3 completely…they wanted to use known songs as it was just for a screening…so we suggested “coming back to life” by Pink Floyd, “Mama am coming home” by Ozzy and the cult “O Fortuna”(the Old Spice ad track) for the climax…as St. Peters is a boys school, it also has a long past of boys flirting with students of girls convents…mainly Kimmin’s School(70’s film ‘Julie’ has been shot there) and St. Joseph Convent at Panchgani…they not only have history of flirting, loving and marrying students but also students marrying teachers and vice versa…and every alumni from the centenary party got nostalgic with it…in Part-2 of the videos below, you’ll find 1927 batch student Virji showing photos of his girlfriends…am sure this post will find some of the St. Peters students reading it..

St. Peters School Panchgani AV(Part-1)

St. Peters School Panchgani AV(Part-2)

St. Peters School Panchgani AV(Part-3)

It might feel very juvenile when you see but the filming of the song Coming back to life was quite inspired by Floyds “The wall”…I wanted to make it very nostalgic for ex-students so I made those kids run through the huge playgrounds of the school… as the kids live away from their family, they had to write a letter in every two weeks to their parents…so let’s get back from where i started…I was shooting at the Rhodesia House with kids under the age of 8 and I wanted shots of kids writing and reading letters …so we organised a letter writing competition at the dorm itself and made the boys read their own letters to get the shots…all the young kids running in their undies wore their uniform quickly and started writing for the sake of their award…

Taare Zameen Par Promo

…so whenever I see the promos of TZP on TV I get nostalgic and get the same feeling…for me the shot of the lead kid in the promo who is lost in his own world with watery eyes reacting to some action, is the most magical shot of the year…I don’t know how good or bad the film is or will be, but It reminds me of my childhood in cinema which I can never forget…

…well am still learning in the school of cinema, and my exams are near..need to work hard…wish me luck!

Note: This post is not a promotion or review of TZP