🎥🌏 Why Indian Cinema Needs to Embrace Storytelling in English (or Hindi-English Hybrid)
- Sajeev Varghese
- Jul 3
- 6 min read
The Universal Gateway We’re Ignoring
India is a country of extraordinary contradictions — 1.4 billion hearts beating in rhythm, yet speaking hundreds of different languages. With 22 officially recognized languages and hundreds of smaller tongues and dialects, India isn’t just diverse; it is a living symphony of stories.
And yet, for decades, Indian cinema has mostly been divided along linguistic lines. Hindi dominates Bollywood, Telugu and Tamil hold the South, Malayalam is celebrated for its craft, and so on.
Every year, India produces around 2,000 films across all regional industries — the highest number of films produced by any country in the world. These films feed an entertainment ecosystem that includes over 9,500 screens, making India one of the largest cinema markets globally.
Indians have an insatiable thirst for films — not just as entertainment, but as collective experiences, emotional resets, and cultural mirrors.
Yet, despite this hunger and the scale of production, most films remain trapped within linguistic and regional silos.
Today, as India surpasses China to become the world’s most populous nation — and as it emerges as a creative powerhouse — we must ask:
"What language will help our stories truly travel?"
🌟 The Rise of India’s “Universal Language”
Contrary to nostalgic narratives, English is no longer a foreign tongue in India. It’s a living, breathing, deeply integrated part of urban and semi-urban life.
About 20% of Indians understand English — that’s nearly 300 million people, larger than the entire population of most Western countries. Meanwhile, Hindi, though widely spoken, is still a first language for only about 44% of Indians.
More importantly, a growing generation speaks Hinglish — that effortless blend where a sentence starts in Hindi, peaks in English, and lands wherever it feels most authentic.
"Bro, kal ka presentation ready nahi hai. Boss is going to freak out!"
Sound familiar? It should. It’s the heartbeat of modern India.
💡 A Bridge to Global Audiences
Indian cinema has long aspired to “go global,” but aside from rare crossovers like Lagaan or recent festival wonders like RRR, it remains largely region-locked.
The global success of non-English language films (Parasite, Roma, Drive My Car) shows that specificity travels — but it also requires audiences to lean in with subtitles.
When stories are told in English or a natural Hindi-English hybrid, they become instantly more accessible to global audiences without sacrificing authenticity. Festivals and OTT platforms are more likely to pick up, market, and recommend films that can travel effortlessly across borders.
🎬 Reflecting the Real India
Walk into a college campus in Mumbai, a tech park in Bengaluru, or a film set in Hyderabad, and you’ll hear a symphony of code-switching.
This isn’t just a linguistic accident — it’s a cultural truth. Our identities are woven with English, not as colonial residue but as a lived reality.
In UNLEASHED, Kavya’s dialogue slips between Hindi and English not for style points, but because that’s how her mind and soul breathe. When she confronts Aditya in English, it carries a different vulnerability than when she challenges him in Hindi.
Real stories demand real language.
💥 OTT, Festivals, and Global Soft Power
Streaming platforms (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ Hotstar) are transforming content consumption. They reward content that is linguistically accessible and emotionally universal.
Indian filmmakers who choose English or Hinglish can instantly tap into global marketing algorithms, festival lineups, and award circuits — moving beyond the diaspora niche into mainstream hearts.
🛡 Dismantling Regional Silos
India produces about 2,000 films each year — from blockbusters to intimate regional dramas — yet most remain confined within language and state boundaries.
Imagine if just 5–10% of these films took the bold step of embracing a Universal Gateway approach. We wouldn’t be looking at mere "exports" to niche festival circuits but at a new cinematic wave that resonates from Chennai to Chicago, Mumbai to Montreal, Hyderabad to Helsinki.
❤️ Story-First, Always
A Story-First approach asks a single, radical question:
"What language best serves this story’s emotional truth and intended reach?"
If your story lives most honestly in Tamil, let it live there. But if your characters live between Hindi and English — as millions do — then why force them to choose?
Authenticity isn’t about preserving an arbitrary linguistic purity. It’s about protecting the soul of the story.
🌍 India’s Global Moment
India has everything it needs to become a cinematic superpower: craft, emotional depth, mythology, social tension, humor, and chaos — all the raw material for unforgettable stories.
But to make that leap from regional legend to global storyteller, we need to see language not as a fence but as a bridge.
💬 A Call to Rewrite
"Language should be an invitation, not a gate."
It’s time for Indian cinema to embrace its real linguistic heartbeat — to invite more voices, more eyes, and more hearts into its emotional universe.
Because the future doesn’t belong to the loudest or the most formulaic.It belongs to those who dare to rewrite, to those who serve the story above all else, and to those who understand that every line of dialogue is a door to someone’s soul.
🛡️ Beyond Translation: The Courage to Tell Stories Right
While Indian filmmakers dream of taking their stories across borders, they often rely on quick fixes like dubbing or low-cost closed captions to “globalize” their films. But these shortcuts betray the story. Poorly translated captions flatten emotional nuance, butcher humor, and misrepresent cultural layers that took months or years to craft. It’s not just a technical failure — it’s a profound disservice to both Indian audiences and global viewers. Audiences have been far too tolerant of this mediocrity for too long.
A Story-First creator doesn’t outsource the soul of their narrative to cheap translation. They protect every line of dialogue, every whispered confession, every pause with authenticity and diligence. Because when a film is truly story-first, the language — whether spoken or subtitled — becomes a bridge to the heart, not a barrier of convenience. The world is waiting for our stories, but it deserves them told right.
If you’re ready to embrace English or a Hindi-English hybrid, here’s how to do it with integrity and depth:
⚠️ Cautionary Steps for Embracing English (or Hindi-English Hybrid) Storytelling
🎤 Honor the Emotional Language of Your Characters
Ask: In what language does your character cry? Argue? Whisper secrets? Let them lead.
🗣 Avoid "Forced Globalization"
Hinglish or English must feel organic, not decorative. Don’t perform for the market — embody the moment.
💬 Craft Dialogue with Surgical Precision
Every word must feel lived, not written for effect. Work with bilingual consultants.
🧏 Protect Subtext and Silence
Don’t over-explain. Sometimes, silence carries more truth than any line ever could.
🎥 Rehearse Across Languages
Workshop scenes in different languages to find hidden emotional resonance.
📄 Invest in Thoughtful Subtitling and Captioning
Treat them as core narrative elements, not an afterthought.
🌍 Keep the Universal Gateway in Focus
Screen with diverse audiences. Prioritize emotional comprehension over literal translation.
🪞 Ask the Story-First Mirror Questions
Am I deepening or diluting vulnerability? Serving the story or serving the market?
💡 Be Prepared to Rewrite — Even Late
Authenticity might demand painful last-minute changes. Honor that.
✨ Commit to Dignity and Depth
Language is your contract with the audience. Protect it fiercely.
💬 Your Turn
If you’re a filmmaker, writer, or producer:
Ask your story what language it wants to breathe in.
Ask your characters what tongue they dream in.
And then, choose courage over convention.
Because the Story-First approach isn’t about easy wins or surface-level inclusivity. It’s about honoring the story’s deepest truth and giving it a language that invites the world — without losing its soul.
🔗 Connect to the Movement
🌐 iJOT Story Consulting — www.ijotconsulting.com
💥 Final Thought
The future of Indian cinema is not just local or global. It’s universal. And it starts with a simple act: choosing the language that keeps the story alive.
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