There is a lot to unpack in English Vinglish. The film has many layers and while each layer offers an individual piece of social commentary the nature of these topics is that they are inextricably linked to and defined by each other thus in this response I will singularly analyze the evolution of the relationship between the instructor, David, and his class of non-English speakers by exposing its connection to other themes explored in the movie.
The first scene we see with David is Shashi’s first day of class. David is introduced as a white, English-speaking gay man. David as a person possesses the power and privileges of whiteness and English fluency but is also an “other” in society due to his gayness. David navigates a challenging role in which he simultaneously empowers and undermines his non-English speaking students. By teaching them English he is handing them a powerful tool but he is also assisting in the erasure of their non-English, non-Western identities by aiding their assimilation into Western society.
I believe the classroom functions as a microcosm for the larger physical setting of the movie and the complex interactions of diverse persons with different amounts of power and privilege. In the first few classes David speaks from a position of power and there is clearly a distancing of himself from his students. He does not know his students and they do not know him. There is, however, more than a language barrier between David and his students. There is a fundamental lack of mutual acknowledgment of each others’ humanity and the equality in their humanness. While David reflects the larger dehumanization and disregard for those who do not meet society’s standards of respectability, the othering of David by the students demonstrates the natural human tendency to dehumanize the “different”.
David’s relationship with the class remains statically dichotomous for several scenes. We see the height of ethnic division when Shashi asks David why it is “the United States” and not “the India”. David is taken aback by the agency of Shashi’s mind as well as the implications of such a question. It is arguably the first moment in which David is forced to confront the larger forces at play within his classroom. That very day the students gather outside and are excited by the idea of Shashi “challenging” David’s authority. For the first time we see the non-American students vent their frustrations at being thought less intelligent or inadequate. Their frustration is aimed at David but is also directed at the larger system in which the politics of respectability are so clearly skewed in favor of whiteness and English fluency.
We see a pivotal shift in the student-teacher dynamic when Shashi tells the Pakistani cab driver not to belittle David’s heart ache simply because he is gay. In her broken English Shashi is able to fully articulate the connection between all humanity and the harm of insensitivity towards others. Here is where we see David’s gayness being used a source of connection between the students and the teacher. Both parties are marginalized by society and both parties are susceptible to reinforcing the same dehumanizing mentalities that marginalize them. David is seen listening in on Shashi’s advice to the Pakistani cab driver and from this moment his role evolves from teacher to friend. By the end of the movie David is part of Shashi’s circle of “close friends” and becomes genuinely invested in her and her classmates’ happiness and success.
The relationship between David and his students changes because of Shashi and her ability to empathize with those who are different. Her own marginalization creates in her a sensitivity to the marginalization of others; thus her marginalization actually thrusts her to the forefront of the movie's conversation with the audience. The evolution of David’s relationship with his students is thus defined by the themes presented in the movie, themes of compassion, race relations, the effects of Western supremacy, the dynamics of power and privilege between diverse persons and the changing role of Indian women within modern society.
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