Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya, which is located in a Delhi exurb and can be reached after taking “the left from the gutter”, is struggling to live up to its name. Unruly students, frustrated teachers, substandard results, poor facilities and a principal so laidback he’s almost recumbent – ABV is anything but ideal.
An education department official offers an incentive. If the headmaster Gyanendra (Kay Kay Menon) can galvanise his staff and students into transforming the institution into one of the 10 schools in Delhi with the best tenth standard exam results, Gyanendra will be sent to the United Kingdom for a training programme.
Gyanendra is willing – especially since he can take along his long-suffering wife Sushma (Prachee Shah) – but is he able? The Prime Video series Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya offers many opportunities to doubt Gyanendra, wonderfully played with bashfulness and slyness by Kay Kay Menon.
The can-do teacher’s brigade at ABV includes the gung-ho Kanchan (Prasanna Bisht) and the over-enthusiastic Shiney (Ajitesh Singh). Leading the naysayers is Hansraj (Abhimanyu Singh), a firm believer in corporal punishment.
Among the fence-sitters are the dedicated counsellor Mukul (Naveen Kasturia) and the pallu-clutching Mrs Sharma (Annapurna Soni). Supplying obstacles rather than solutions is the school’s patron, the local legislator Goldy (Deven Bhojani), who is preoccupied with an upcoming election. Goldy’s aide Urmila (Archana Puran Singh) has a long-standing grudge with Gyanendra.
Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya is a riotous, sharply subversive account of how Gyanendra tries to achieve the impossible. Created by Biswapati Sarkar and Sameer Saxena and directed by Himank Gaur, the Hindi series is packed with unhinged, edgy humour.
Writers Sarkar, Akshay Asthana, Nupur Pai, Tatsat Pandey and Meghna Srivastava churn out laugh-out-loud lines and impossible situations to keep both staffers and students busy. The comedy ranges from subtle satire, especially over the question of the quality of education in under-funded schools, to slapstick comedy, always present whenever the buffoonish Goldy is around.
After a tentative start, Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya kicks into high gear when the personalities of the major and minor players are revealed. Apart from Gyanendra and Sushma, Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya pays attention to the bond between Kanchan and Hansraj, whose formidable Hindi is out of a “Rajkamal Prakashan textbook”, as Urmila grumbles, and who has named his daughters Sangya (meaning “noun”) and Kriya (verb).
Mukul, who points out that reforming the school is like fuelling a car that doesn’t have an engine, has his own sub-plot revolving around his feisty daughter, a student at ABV. The equation between Gyanendra and Urmila is like a dance involving two people with left feet.
Various students, from a shady apple-polisher to a student who insists on being rusticated so that he can become a social media influencer, complement the seething anarchy in the staffroom.
Landing as it does amidst student-led protests across the country, Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya is uncannily well-timed. Beyond its unintended topicality, the series deftly uses an old device – comedy – to reveal why education in “New India” is a right royal mess.
The show is astute about its setting. Poorly paid teachers, under-motivated students, a crucial exam that makes little sense to working-class parents but is nevertheless important for them, the school’s miserable lack of amenities – none of these realities can be buried under the avalanche of jokes.
An episode revolving around the importance of kheer in a mid-day meal could well be about eggs. In another episode, Goldy demands that his back story be included in the history curriculum.
Goldy also targets students with poor marks, reasoning that if everyone studies well, he will run out of foot soldiers to recruit. There’s even a dig at compromised journalists, represented by Amit (Biswapati Sarkar), a rabble-rouser with the TV channel Utpaat (or calamity).
As a microcosm of a similarly chaotic country, Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya delivers exasperation and resignation but hope too.
Apart from Kay Kay Menon, an excellent joker in the pack who turns out to be the ace in the hole, there are compelling performances by the other actors. Naveen Kasturia, Prasanna Bisht, Archana Puran Singh and Prachee Shah shine in their roles.
Abhimanyu Singh is superbly cast against type as the ruler-wielding, wisdom-spouting Hansraj. The child actors who play the students are suitably entertaining, and endearing.
