Idle musings

On 21-Aug-2016, my wife and I watched the Hindi movie Nil Battey Sannata. This blog post is my review of the movie. The movie has a simple story: a maid (or "bai", in Mumbai lexicon) wants her daughter to take studies and school seriously. The bai Deepa Sahai dotes on her daughter Apeksha, fondly called Apu. Deepa works at a doctor's house where her employers are supportive of her. The doctor's wife is called "didi", by Deepa, the term  of respect used commonly by maids to address their employers. Deepa bares her heart to didi about her worry regarding Apu's maths knowledge and her general lack of interest in studies. It is now that the women realise that both of them are also Nil Battey Sannata (loosely: good for nothings, according to a search on the Web) in maths, just like Apu ! Didi now suggests a radical idea: Deepa herself could enroll into tenth standard ! In this way, she would achieve two objectives: complete her disrupted educat