Sunday nights in Poorvi Kurundkar’s home meant pasta and a movie. Her mother usually made pink sauce, a compromise between Poorvi’s preference for white sauce and her sister’s preference for red. Then came another family negotiation: deciding what everyone could watch.
Until Poorvi was around 12, her parents often checked Common Sense Media or IMDb’s Parents' Guide before choosing a film. They were not looking simply for an age label. They wanted to know what they could compromise on. Some violence could be acceptable if discussed afterward, and certain themes depended on how they were presented. What mattered was understanding what a film contained, then deciding whether their daughters were ready for it.
Born in the United States and later raised in India, Poorvi grew up in a family that wanted her and her sister to stay connected to Indian culture. Films became one way of introducing their daughters to Indian history and cultural references.
Poorvi remembers her family considering Jodhaa Akbar. Her parents saw the historical drama as a way for their daughters to encounter Indian history, but they could not find useful guidance on its romance or sexual content. They wanted enough information to decide whether, and when, it was right for their weekly family movie nights.
Years later, that recurring problem became Mirchi Meter, an age-based review platform Poorvi built for Indian cinema.
“A family-first perspective to Hindi film ratings is what Mirchi Meter brings. With age-based guidance and opinions from both parents and kids, Mirchi Meter makes choosing a film to watch more informed and worry-free,” says celebrated film producer, Miriam Joseph.
More than an age rating
Poorvi did not agree with the broad categories used by film certification boards. To her, putting a 13-year-old and a 17-year-old in the same bracket overlooked how quickly children develop.
And this is where Mirchi Meter comes in: a platform that breaks films down into shorter and more appropriate age brackets, across violence and scariness, sexual content, substance use, strong language, positive role models, and social stereotypes.
Another feature is Beyond the Screen, which highlights the issues discussed in the movie, with an additional subsection for older movies, called “Rewatching with 2025 Eyes,” that examines how they hold up against contemporary social norms.
The structure above reflects how Poorvi observed her parents finalize movies, while adding the socio-political complexities reflected in the film industry. For Poorvi, it is not about censoring entertainment, but about empowering Indian families with a comprehensive framework to evaluate movies and thus make informed decisions.
Learning to build for her users
Poorvi’s first challenge was scale. She initially hoped she, her friends, and family could write the site’s foundational reviews, but after the first seven reviews, it became clear the model wouldn't be sustainable.
Her solution was to use AI-generated summaries and preliminary ratings based on the rigorous template Poorvi designed. Mirchi Meter now employs AI-generated material, but weighs audience reviews more heavily. Her goal is for human contributions to eventually replace AI-generated material entirely.
Poorvi’s approach with human reviews has changed over time. At launch, users could choose between a quick rating and a detailed review as Poorvi expected the shorter option to encourage participation. She was right, but she didn't realize almost everyone chose the shorter reviews, leaving Mirchi Meter with numbers but without the written explanations needed to replace its AI-generated assessments.
So Poorvi removed the short-review option.
While she does plan to restore it once enough detailed reviews are available, the experience taught her that convenience can work against a product’s purpose.
Poorvi also interviewed industry professionals, including film producer Miriam Joseph and a cinematographer, to understand how creative decisions shape what audiences see. The conversations covered a host of pressing topics, including the lack of Indian coming-of-age films and filming protocols used during A-rated scenes, and introduced Poorvi to the Bechdel Test, which taught her to evaluate female representation in Indian media and informed some of Mirchi Meter’s Beyond the Screens. The transcripts remain available on the website.
Taking Mirchi Meter beyond the screen
During its strongest launch period, Mirchi Meter reached roughly 200 hits a day for about a week.
Some of her most memorable marketing happened offline.
She printed QR code posters and approached grocery stores, stationery shops, and other businesses in Hyderabad, India, asking whether they would display them near their cashiers. Intrigued, the shopkeepers asked how the platform worked and offered to help draw attention to it.
For Poorvi, those interactions showed that a frustration from her own childhood was felt by other families too.
She is now trying to make Mirchi Meter more community-centered. Its “Bollywood Bulletin” includes a weekly question drawn from 52 prompts she created herself. She hopes to expand the catalog to include other regional Indian-language films and eventually build a network of human reviewers.
Her ambition is not to turn Mirchi Meter into a business. She wants families to have enough public perspectives to make their own choices rather than rely on one reviewer or authority.
Where science and storytelling meet
Mirchi Meter also reflects Poorvi’s deeper interest in how people develop and respond to their experiences. This culminated in a separate section on the website on developmental psychology, where users can understand how media shapes the human brain.
However, her scientific interests in the brain extend beyond film. With a keen interest in addiction, she hopes to bring addiction awareness to her community. Through her podcast, The Rush, on addiction, she interviews specialists about social media dependence, substance use, and relapse.
Poorvi does not try to force her interests into one clear explanation. Like the human brain she hopes to study, they are connected in ways that may not always be obvious at first.
That instinct also runs through more than a decade in theatre and through a fantasy novel she wrote during the pandemic, which was later published. Stories have long been one way Poorvi makes sense of the world. And with Mirchi Meter, she has begun making them accessible for all ages, too.
