The word “ziddi” means headstrong, and Prime Video India’s latest lives up to its title. The series is based on the real Delhi college Miranda House, and hasn’t been without controversy: students, faculty, and alumni of Miranda House took legal action against Ziddi Girls based on an early trailer that included a controversial voiceover about porn, which plays a central role in the storyline. Read on to find out whether the series is worth the hullabaloo.
Opening Shot: At the prestigious and progressive Matilda House, an all-girls hostel and college, a group of students are watching an erotic scene on a screen. One girl dubs it “sex education,” while another clandestinely sends a photo of the TV to a friend—a decision that will backfire almost immediately.
The Gist: Delhi’s all-girls college Matilda House is known for its progressive policies, most recently agreeing to extend the student’s curfew. But when the news of the student body president showing sexually explicit images to the freshman class in the name of sex education reaches the national news, the freedoms of the students and jobs of the faculty are immediately threatened. Ziddi Girls specifically follows five of the freshman girls at the school whose lives intertwine at Matilda House and in the fight to save it.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? A sex-positive message set at a school is immediately reminiscent of Netflix’s Sex Education, but without most of the explicit imagery. The series’ focus on maintaining progressive values in the face of a newly anointed conservative leader will especially remind viewers of Sex Education’s fourth and final season.
Our Take: The existence of art is to reflect the world around us, and Prime Video India’s most recent series Ziddi Girls tries to do just that. The series is heavy in its themes, preaching a message about female empowerment and how to keep fighting even in the face of adversity, and is a bit uneven in its execution of those ideas.
Centered on the fight for progressive values at an all-girls school in Delhi, Ziddi Girls follows five students as they navigate the regime of a newer, more conservative principal. In its first hour, however, I found the faculty to be the more compelling group of people, as their presence grounded the story and conveyed the gravity of the proposed rollbacks to the girls’ privileges at school. Occasionally characters are hinted at having a deeper connection to the school, but their relationship is not drawn clearly (for one, the male student who appears on the news program disparaging the school seems to have ties to people at the school without that being explained).
But even with some misgivings, the series still hits on what feels like an important story to tell, especially in 2025. The show’s themes mirror not just current events in India, but across the world, as progressive and left-leaning ideologies are attacked and surveilled under more authoritarian and conservative leadership. And what Ziddi Girls seems to focus on is how to examine these takeovers at face value, without falling victim to their propaganda. At one point, the Matilda House principal criticizes the woman that will eventually take her job: “If you don’t listen to her closely, it actually sounds like she’s making sense.” If that’s not a commentary on many of our current predicaments, I don’t know what is.
Sex and Skin: Even though the series opens with what the conservative characters on the series dub as porn, the series itself isn’t hellbent on showing sex and skin.
Parting Shot: As their well-liked Principal is pushed out of her position, a much more conservative replacement gives a speech to the student body, proposing a vote on rolling back the hard-earned 11pm curfew to 7pm as a way to quell the discussion surrounding the school.
Sleeper Star: Revathy’s performance as the progressive principal is extremely stoic as she balanced receiving the upsetting news of her dismissal and delivering this information to her fragile students.
Most Pilot-y Line:: “You know what I love the most? The sound of a stereotype when it breaks. And you’re the one breaking stereotypes. A girl on wheels should be a bechari (poor thing), but you’re quite a bitch,” says Tabby to Wallika, a crass line that cements their friendship.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite some lackluster character development, the show’s message is worth seeking out.
Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in New York City. Her work has appeared on Paste Magazine, Teen Vogue, Vulture and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.