Too much ladaai, too little fun: Why it is difficult to connect to 'Ziddi Girls'

Ziddi Girls, an alleged fictional account of life at Delhi’s Miranda House, where the girls are vocal and vociferous, took me back to my days at MH—where I often felt like an outsider. Here’s why I struggled to connect with the show

In the year 2000, when I was in the second year of pursuing my BA English (Honours) degree at Miranda House, Delhi University, director Deepa Mehta was trying to make Water. The film, which dramatised the plight of widows at a Hindu temple in the 1930s, was scheduled to shoot in Varanasi but the Uttar Pradesh government claimed it was provoking civil disorder. There had been a riot on the sets, allegedly caused by protestors who claimed it was anti-Hindu.

At Miranda House, the conversation was rife about supporting Mehta’s right to shoot. A human chain was organised and students were encouraged to go. I remember asking few of the protesting girls, and my teachers, if Mehta was planning to donate the profits made by this movie to the widows still existing in Varanasi. And no one really knew or had an answer. And so, at the time, I felt no need to go and support this cause. I was looked at snidely, and my choice dismissed as one made by a dumb (a snap judgment that was based on my fondness for dressing up), frivolous, boy-crazy chick who knew no better. 

Maybe I didn’t know better. Twenty-five years later, I feel differently. Freedom of expression is vital to artistes of all kinds, and the awareness Mehta brought to the ostracism of these widows is her legacy. 

Ziddi Girls. Pic/Instagram

And so, maybe Ziddi Girls, gets that right—that the girls at MH as it was called (Matilda House in the show), were studying in an environment that promoted feminism, individualism and freedom of speech and expression. The two questions I was asked during my entrance exam for English literature were: Which is your favourite movie or book and why? I wrote about Illusions by Richard Bach and the girl next to me wrote about Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. She didn’t make the cut. The second was: Would I opt for a love or arranged marriage? I have a feeling if I had chosen the “arranged” option, I wouldn’t be writing this piece today. It was a college that took itself seriously—Deepa Mehta’s Fire was screened in the auditorium, one of my cool professors (who I feel Nandita Das’s teacher character may have been shaped to look like) often used to smoke in class, and women were presumed to be more intellectual if they thought more about Chaucer and less about men.  

And so, I was a misfit at Miranda. I had friends outside of college—who I met in the University special, which was basically a fancy name for the bus that took us to college. And I would bindaas bunk to hang out with them. We would watch 7 am movies for R7 tickets, sit at the Delhi School of Economics in the morning, and loaf at the Hindu canteen or Stephens Café in the afternoon. In my own class, the hostel girls stuck together, and the other intellectuals looked down on me for being such an unserious specimen. Today though, one of my best friends is my sole friend from MH—a trailblazer herself. We survived because later in life, when we met in Mumbai, we chose each other as our ride or die. And because despite our differences, we focused on our commonalities.  

And that’s what lacked for me during my time in the college. To me, Miranda House was a place so caught up with its “identity” as a serious, feminist college, that it didn’t really give space to anyone it saw as differing from its version of who a feminist is. And so, I didn’t see myself at all in the show at all.

The show reflects director and alum Shonali Bose’s experience there—she had been an activist and was also involved in theatre. It’s a show where the sole focus, it seemed to me, was saying “to be a student is to protest”. I would have enjoyed the show more if it had also focused a bit more on growing pains of every teenager, and less on making a compilation of stereotypical tropes—the activist, the spoilt bad girl, the influencer wannabe, the studious chugalkhor, the actress. Even the men are stereotypes—the Virat Kohli wannabe, the musician, the kurta-wearing soft spoken theatre director. Nahin ya. 

What saved it for me were great performances by the young actors—all the girls are brilliant. Also, I enjoyed the banter in the few scenes where the girls are just being girls, and the male actor they got to play the young under-19 cricketer is good eye candy. The plot by the end becomes too convoluted, too contrived and too confusing. The theatrics could have been done better. But to watch or not? No, if you are looking for a fun take on college life. Yes, if you don’t mind fast-forwarding the boring bits. 

2.05/5

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