Hichki feels more like To Sir With Love despite being an official adaptation of Front of the Class (which in turn was based on Brad Cohen’s book Front of the Class: How Tourette Syndrome Made Me the Teacher I Never Had). Yes, the lead Naina Mathur (Rani Mukerji) does have the neurological disorder and there is an attempt to make one aware of the medical condition. However, there is a bigger leap that the film attempts (not entirely successfully though) to take on dealing with the class divides that underline our society.
After much struggle when Naina finds a job as a teacher, she is assigned the most difficult class – 9F – that has 14 disadvantaged children. Hailing from the poverty-ridden slums, they are “misfits” like her, constantly reminded that “they don’t belong” to the world of privileged education that they have got in. Something that seems to have toughened them, made them distrustful beyond repair. Will Naina, borrowing a leaf out of Thackeray’s (Sidney Poitier) page in To Sir With Love be able to reform them? Will she be able to channelise their disquiet and disruptiveness into something positive and fruitful? Will she be able to stand up to their pranks and win their respect.