Patna: A spoken English institute, which took inspiration from Sridevi's comeback film English Vinglish in 2012 to start a course for underprivileged girls here, held a condolence meeting on Monday to mourn the actress.

Birbal Jha, the managing director of British Lingua, said Sridevi's death was like a personal loss for them. "We are saddened by the demise of the fine actress whose comeback venture had served as a catalyst for our endeavours," Jha said.

Appreciation for the project had come from the actress herself who, upon learning about the programme and the benefits the Mahadalit girls were deriving from it, said her film English Vinglish has achieved its goal, Jha claimed.

Sridevi, who gave stellar performances in films such as Mr India, Chaalbaaz and Lamhe among many others, played Shashi in her 2012 comeback film. The character was of a homemaker who enrols in a spoken English class to stop her family mocking her for lack of English skills and gains self-respect in the process.

"It feels like only yesterday when we had taken a batch of 200 Mahadalit girls to a cinema hall for a special screening of the film, where the actress played the role of a housewife, who was driven by ridicule from her loved ones to make a determined effort to master the language," Jha said.

The Mahadalit girls were trained by the institute as part of a collaborative initiative between British Lingua and the state government's Mahadalit Vikas Mission. Around 30,000 youths from downtrodden sections of society have benefited from the project between 2012 and 2016.

"Our efforts to teach children from underprivileged backgrounds spoken English continue. English for all is our motto. We have our branches in Patna, Gaya and Delhi, where we train young boys and girls at a nominal fee. We also make it a point to provide free training to at least a dozen youths in each centre," Jha said. PTI