Your mom keeps telling you to go to school and focus on studies. Now, imagine a famous Bollywood director sounding like your mom.

A bunch of children of a primary school run for free by Kapali-based Galaxy Youth Organisation got the biggest motivation to attend classes regularly when Jamshedpur boy-turned-Bolly director Imtiaz Ali asked them to study hard and complete their education.

In his hometown, the director unveiled a plaque of the organisation's upcoming school building at Kabirnagar in Mango on Monday. The building will come up on a sprawling 5,760sqft plot.

"Investing in children's education is the best investment because you keep getting returns throughout life. I would request all parents to encourage their children to attend school. I believe education of the girl child is important. The outfit is doing an excellent job by providing free education to needy children. I hope it grows into a full-fledged school that helps poor children," said Imtiaz.

The Kabirnagar-based social outfit has been running this free school out of a rented house for the last 14 years.

Starting with just 28 children, the cradle now has 280 students on its rolls. It follows a CBSE curriculum and nine teachers teach kids from Nursery to Class V.

The children were super excited to meet Imtiaz. While most did not know who Imtiaz exactly was, they all knew he worked with stars like Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranbir Singh and Deepika Padukone.

"This man works with film stars," exclaimed third grader Sahabbuddin Ansari when he got his first glimpse of the director of Jab We Met and Love Aaj Kal. Children also clicked pictures with him.