A lady enters a tailor’s shop and shows him a picture of a model with a backless kurti. Her daughter is with her and she is the one who wanted towear the sexy backless choli.
The tailor hints that such deep backs are rarely worn because people around would not quite appreciate. The mother says that it is her daughter’s wish – she is adamant – not listening to me etc etc.
In the meantime a young apprentice of the tailor observes her beauty and instantly falls in love with her. He assures her that he will make her the backless kurti. He makes it also…then pursues her wherever she goes…without her knowledge..lovelorn for her…
Next we see that they both are married. They have a 5 years old daughter. The apprentice – Raj- is a rich businessman with his own showroom selling bridal wear. Mita, his wife, wants their daughter to get through in some good English Medium school. She herself was from some Government school but her English was not too good. Raj could not speak Englsih at all – since probably he had not even attended school!
Whenever there was an argument regarding admission, Mita always said:
Pia (their daughter) will grow up, she will be unable to mix with high profile English speaking people, she will not be confident to speak in English, she will be frustrated, she will start taking drugs and she may even commit suicide!
Mita probably had faced embarrassment because of her inability to speak good English – so she did not want her daughter to face the same embarrassment! It is quite possible given her taste of copying models wearing backless cholies and we all know how fashion magazines are full of models wearing almost nothing…and then they are being interviewed by media man – they rule the billboards, TV, films, magazines – so it is but natural of a young girl to get impressed by the chamak-dhamak of the glamour world. She wanted to emulate them totally but failed miserably at it – firstly – because of her own schooling – that must a Hindi Medium school and secondly her husband could not even speak a sentence in English! See – this is what I write all the time – don’t let the wasteful and shameless wolves set the priorities of life for your child! The rich and the famous who rule the media will definitely become role models for your children and they will soon follow the fools into the deep dark well of idiocy!
They then shift from Chandni Chowk to a posh area so that they mix with sophisticated high profile families…who could especially speak in English! But they face hell lot of embarrassment even there – Mita throws a party and Raj starts to dance joyfully like the basti people do when a typical basti Item song is played!
They then shift to a very poor locality – basti – so that their daughter gets the gareeb (financially backward) quota from the school. She somehow gets selected but then the son of the person he befriends in the basti does not get a chance in the school. Raj feels guilty that he has eaten up the seat that rightfully belonged to his son.
Raj then goes to the local Government school and pays them to renovate the school so that children are comfortable and have books and bags to carry to school. Later he goes to confess to the Principal of the elite school that he had cheated and he did not deserve the quota. The Principal does not react much and says – it is okay, at least you can afford the schooling here – the financially backward student anyway drops out after 2-3 years as they can’t afford such expensive school.
She then relates her own story – that she was the daughter of the aayah of the school and she had a very difficult time adjusting with other rich students of her class. She used to do their homework and other odd jobs so that she gets invited to birthday parties of her class mates…and even when she was invited, she used to stand in the corner and was unable to mix with others. That is a very humiliating experience for a child! Probably this is the reason why our ancestors always said ‘Apni Aukad main raho’ – cut your coat according to the cloth.
If you work hard with dedication – you will have a good lifestyle. Raj himself was an apprentice to a local tailor master…but because he was good at his work, he made it very big in his life….owning a BMW and an AC showroom in the heart of the city is not a joke after all. Plus he was confident in spite of not speaking fluent English! In fact one lady even mentions to Mita that since you all belong to business class, your children will take over the business…but our children have to create their own niche in this world.
The film is trying to show the ‘Spoken English’ craze that we, the Indians have…or we, the nouveau riche Indians, have.
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