How 'Hindi Medium' is 'Finding Nemo' in the Ocean of Class Divide

Heroes must pursue goals in films, but that doesn’t mean they always have to achieve them

One is the story of a father fish who swims across the ocean to find his missing son. The other is a social drama set in a class-divided Delhi where a father moves heaven and earth to get his daughter admitted into a high-class school. They seem worlds apart, but are they? Let’s take a closer look.

Raj Batra’s life loses its equilibrium when Mita, his wife, wants to send their daughter Pia to a high-class English Medium school. They have to move out of their low-brow Chandni Chowk neighbourhood, which brought them together and made them fall in love; then they have to move from the comfort of their first language Hindi to mingle with their new neighbours. The couple is prepared to make any sacrifice in the hope that once their daughter finds a place in the premium school she will move past the class barrier.

Marlin, the papa fish of Finding Nemo, is ready to cross the ocean to find his missing son, Nemo. He gets stung by jellyfish and gets literally into the belly of a whale to achieve his goal. His adventure is met with success and he finds Nemo, only to learn the lesson that he needs to let him go.

Raj Batra has a similar journey but in a different world. Instead of getting bitten by jellyfish, he is bitten by rats and mosquitos. And instead of getting swallowed by a whale, he is eaten up by an overwhelming sense of guilt and is made aware of his privilege of being wealthy. In the process, he learns to let go of what he struggled to gain, a seat for his daughter in a high-class school, and decides to use his wealth to bring about real change.

Finding Nemo and Hindi Medium are worlds apart, true, but they are essentially the same story, set in two very different worlds, because neither of them is about what their protagonists want to achieve in their external quests. Both films are about protagonists who need a realisation. Marlin needs to learn that love doesn’t mean being overprotective but true love means to let go of his son. Similarly, Raj Batra of Hindi Medium needs to learn that true love for his daughter doesn’t mean getting her admitted in a high-class school by unjust and illegal means but sharing his riches to bring about a substantial change in the environment that he is a product of, and of which he feels ashamed.

Heroes must pursue a goal in films, but that doesn’t mean they always have to achieve them. They broadly have three possibilities in their quest of a tangible goal:-

A. Hero pursues a goal and achieves it. (Upbeat dramas: Dangal, Lagaan)

B. Hero pursues a goal and fails to achieve it. (Mostly crime genre: Satya, Parinda)

C. Hero pursues a goal, gets it and gives it up. (Hindi Medium, Raazi)

Hindi Medium falls into the third category. This category of films is about realisation or discovery that changes the hero’s beliefs. Marlin, an overprotective father, learns to let go of his son; similarly, Raj Batra learns to let go of the school seat for which he leaves no stone unturned in the film.

The realisation plots are engineered to push the hero into a corner where her/his beliefs are challenged. At the beginning of such stories, heroes believe in one value system that necessitates the action plot. Action plots push heroes into exhausting their means to safeguard their old beliefs. But instead of solving their problems, their old beliefs land them in a deeper crisis. And this crisis can’t be overcome unless the heroes change their beliefs. This is what happens to both Marlin and Raj. They are forced to change their worldviews.

And the change of beliefs must come with rewards. Marlin is rewarded with an expression of love from his son. In Hindi Medium, Raj, who is initially held in contempt by his wife for his lack of facility for the English language, wins admiration from her for his newfound courage to speak the truth.

Do they still seem worlds apart?