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Two weeks after its release in theatres Hindi Medium is drawing more and more viewers to the theatres.
This is surprising but then it is not. This low budget film by Saket starring Irrfan, Saba Qamar and Deepak Dobriyal released along with the Chetan Bhagat story Half Girlfriend is picking up on the basis of mouth to mouth publicity.
This is a film that touches each of us very closely. Probably the timing of its release also has a lot to do with its rising graph as admissions to schools are the biggest challenge for people even more than surviving.
Contrary to the title the film is not about the advantage or disadvantage of studying in a Hindi medium school.
The whole effort of this typical couple from Chandni Chowk where Irrfan owns a cloth chop is to send their child to an English medium school. He might be a highly successful businessman in Chandni Chowk but at hone he is happily hen- pecked husband of Saba Qamar who likes to check his spellings all the time whenever he tries to speak English.
Irrfan has been saying in various interviews that the film is based on a real incident. Which might be true because the film deals with cheating by private schools in the name of EWS admissions. The couple is willing to go to any length to get their only child admitted in a public school which they call roughly call English medium school.
First they try to change their residence from Chandni Chowk to the upmarket Vasant Vihar but everyday they face insults and humiliation from their so called friends. But they would have continued to bead these insults had they not realised that this was not enough.
And then their real trial begins when a tout promise to get them admitted through the EWS quota for which they have to spend one month in a colony inhabited by cockroaches and rodents.
This sequence is a revelation as Saba Qamar one of the most popular theatre and screen actresses from Pakistan is in her full element.
Thank God the Shiv Sena did not create a hungama this time and the film could see light of the day. After seeing the super success of the film one can only wish for more such ventures.
Irrfan has already been recognised as the master of under statement not only in Bollywood but all across the world.
Not to forget Deepak Dobriyal (Tanu Weds Manu again) who in a tear-jerking role becomes the real Pivotal point in the all too familiar story.
One only hopes that the stink raised by this movie about frauds by public schools will be taken to its natural conclusion.
