First and foremost, Ziddi Girls, now streaming on Amazon, is a barrel of fun to watch. It is bright, bubbly, and irreverent as it brings down the ultra-conservatism of one of the somewhat starchy teachers, though, in the quest to rectify her moral rectitude, the series doesn’t villainize her.
Besides its pronounced verve, what I really liked about Ziddi Girls is that it constantly leaves room for the ‘Other’ point of view: dissent is fine. But the more normalized viewpoint doesn’t have to be booed away. If Simran playing Lata, the new conservative principal of, ahem, Matilda House (roll of the eyes), is up for ridicule, so is Prof Handa (Nandita Das), whose nose-in-the-air (preferably with a nosering) gender politics is also questioned by a screenplay that is never in the mood to simmer down.
Abundantly aggravated and chronically iconoclastic Ziddi Girls follows the craggy path of a bunch of freshers. Trisha (Atiya Tara Nayak), Tabby (Zaina Ali), Devika (Anupriya Caroli), and Wallika (Deeya Damini), the last named’s physical disability is the brunt of many barbs and jokes on how the disabled are abled and empowered by their disability.
There is an ongoing spirit of tongue-in-cheek radicalism in the air. The best way to enjoy Ziddi Girls is to let these women fuel their own power play as we watch them blow hot and cold, sometimes simultaneously.
It all begins when one of the teachers shows adult content to her students. Luckily, the offender is not a male. The “shocking incident” makes headlines, with political parties playing their sanskari cards while the teachers at, ahem, Matilda (no relation to the orange drink with the same female name) House giggle over the hypocrisy of a social structure that lays down different rules for girls and boys in educational institutions.
Ziddi Girls bears a passing thematic resemblance to French director Teddy Lussi-Modeste’s The Good Teacher and İlker Çatak’s German film The Teacher’s Lounge. Both films did a revealing deep-dive into classroom dynamics and staffroom politics. In both, the teacher protagonist is accused by a student of serious misconduct. In both, the teacher goes all-out to prove his/her innocence.
Nothing in Ziddi Girls gets that serious. Tonally infectious and constantly affectionate towards student-teacher relationships, the series, produced by Pritish Nandy’s entertainment branch, this is a joyride that dares to explore gender dynamics in a boarding school setting without getting too serious-minded. The joyride has both the senior and junior cast batting from the same side on a tough turf at an even pitch.
