A tigress has strayed too close to the villages, and the job of bringing her in lands on a forest officer who has long stopped expecting the system around her to help. That is the starting point of Sherni, Amit Masurkar's 2021 Hindi-language thriller.
What is Sherni about?
The officer at the centre of the story is worn down before the case even begins. Assigned to a forest division where a tigress has become unsettled and is roaming near human settlements, she assembles a team of trackers and local villagers and sets out to locate the animal before the situation turns deadly. The forest is only half the challenge: villagers want the threat gone, officials care more about appearances than outcomes, hunters have their own agenda, and the bureaucracy treats the affair as a nuisance. The tigress stays mostly unseen while the human obstacles multiply, and whether the animal can be taken alive, or whether anyone in charge wants that, becomes a question the officer must answer alone.
About the cast
Vidya Balan leads the ensemble, with Brijendra Kala, Vijay Raaz, Sharat Saxena, Mukul Chadda, Ila Arun, Neeraj Kabi and Gopal Datt filling out the officials, locals and outsiders who surround the search. Amit Masurkar directs. The many speaking parts reflect how the story spreads its attention across a whole community rather than resting on one heroic figure.
Context & significance
Sherni is an Indian production listed under action, adventure, drama and thriller, though its pacing leans towards the procedural: much of the tension comes from meetings, permits and competing interests rather than chases. At a little over two hours, it shows a wildlife emergency from several vantage points, from the forest floor to the district office. The title translates as tigress, and the double meaning, referring both to the animal being tracked and to the woman tracking it, sits at the heart of the story.
Watching Sherni on Ktime
Sherni is available on K-Time with both a Persian dub and Persian subtitles, so viewers can choose between hearing the film in Farsi or following the original Hindi audio with Farsi text. This page is free to read; streaming the film requires logging in to a K-Time account. The Farsi interface makes it easy to switch between audio and subtitle options once you are signed in.