The title is a fallen-into-disuse Hindi phrase. Nil means zero. Bata/ Battey is a word for division. And `sannata' is, of course, silence. Or 'shoonya'. Zero divided by zero is equal to? Yep. Zero. 'Matric- fail' Chanda Sahay (Swara Bhaskar), of course, calls it `jeero'. Because the 'z' is a sound you can expect, more or less, from those who went to schools where the Queen's English is taught from the get go.

In one of her interviews to the media, debutante director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari had disclosed that she got the idea for Nil Battey Sannata while working on a campaign for the education of the girl child and we must say that there could not have been a better film to drive the point home. Starring Swara Bhaskar, Pankaj Tripathi, Ratna Pathak Shah and others, Nil Battey Sannata revolves around Chanda Sahai (Bhaskar), a woman of humble origins, who works as a maid and as a helper at several sweat shops only so that she can provide an education to her precocious but academically unambitious daughter Apeksha (Ria Shukla). However, when Chanda sees that her efforts are getting wasted, she takes the advice of her employer (Ratna Pathak Shah) and enrolls in the same school and class as her daughter to motivate her and also to keep an eye on her, much to the reluctant enthusiasm of the headmaster (Tripathi).

Swara Bhaskar is one actress whose growth can literally be seen in every film she works! Nil Battey Sannata's trailer had already left a lasting impact thanks to it's quirky theme. In fact, there were days when the film would trend throughout the day on Google trends as everybody would be searching for the film. Starring Riya Shukla and Ratna Pathak Shah also in pivotal roles, the movie is more than what the trailer promised! Swara's performance deserves a standing ovation because of the perfection of the character she met with.

Ashwini Iyer Tiwari's debut feature, Nil Battey is a powerful and honest work, completely shorn of the kind of pretension one sees in a large number of Bollywood movies. Swara Bhaskar plays the illiterate maid, Chanda who nurses a dream to educate her 15-year-old daughter, Apeksha (Ria Shukla). Chanda is often frustrated at the girl's attitude who says "A maid's daughter can only hope to be a maid, like a driver's son can only become a driver himself".

Chanda Sahay (Swara Bhaskar) is a hard-working woman who manages several small jobs to provide for her daughter's education. She works as a maid and is lucky to have found an employer (Ratna Pathak Shah) who encourages her towards working hard on her daughter's education. Apeksha (Ria Shukla) is her teenage daughter who has somehow managed to make it to her 10th standard. She is 'Nil Battey Sannata' as they say at Maths. Academically unambitious, Apeksha feels her mother won't afford her further education and hence stops taking her studies seriously.

Why is Math the bte noir for so many? Even today, years after I solved my last differential equation, my eyes glaze over and numbers start floating on a sheet when I am faced by a row of digits, figures, accounts and calculations. Math is anathema for Chanda and Apeksha too; the mother and daughter at the centre of director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari's debut feature film Nil Battey Sannata (good for nothing). Chanda (Swara Bhaskar) is a single parent working multiple jobs everyday - as a domestic help, at a shoe factory, making pickles, etc -- in order to support her rebellious teenage daughter.

A disarmingly simple and heart-warming film that articulates its message without making a song and dance about it, Nil Battey Sannata is a fine achievement. It shines a light on a segment of society where life is a daily grind and where the smallest dreams face the most daunting obstacles. Nil Battey Sannata mines the life of Chanda (Swara Bhaskar), a single mother who does menial jobs all day just in order to give her teenaged daughter Apeksha (Riya Shukla) the education that might help her break the shackles of poverty and privation.