Children are the future of a country and Prime Video’s upcoming comedy-drama series Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya, set in the titular government school, has teachers trying to safeguard that future in their own, eclectic, often comical ways. Starring Kay Kay Menon, Archana Puran Singh, Deven Bhojani, Abhimanyu Singh, Naveen Kasturia and Prasanna Bisht, among others, the show is essentially a satire on the country’s education system and how those at the forefront are trying to do their best with limited resources. The problems are manifold, from taboo around sex education to a deleted component in the mid-day meal. But every issue gets a comical solution because when the road is full of potholes, humour only acts as a shock absorber.
In a freewheeling conversation with creator Biswapati Sarkar and actor Kay Kay Menon, we spoke about their school days, how Kay Kay approached comedy after a string of intense roles, and whether satire has become the only way to convey the truth.
Excerpts:
What kind of students were you guys?
Biswapati Sarkar: Unfortunately, I was a good student (laughs). I always wanted to join the arts and cinema but it was this widespread belief that “good” students don’t do such things. So, naturally I was pushed towards engineering. But I was also a bit of an entertainer. I remember I used to listen to these cassettes of comedians like Raju Srivastav and perform the jokes in class. That’s where I first experienced the joy of entertaining an audience.
Kay Kay Menon: I was more of a back bencher, initially because of my tall height but then I started enjoying that company. But I was more of a closet badmaash (troublemaker). In studies I was average. Even after doing all kinds of shenanigans I used to score about 75-80 per cent. Initially I was in a boys' convent, but then I shifted to a co-ed and got introduced to girls (laughs). For a young boy it was quite a shock. The girls even used to catcall.
Kay Kay, you have shifted quite some schools. How did that affect you as a child?
KK: It makes you an introvert for sure, because every time you have to reintroduce yourself in front of different people. You have to make new friends every time. It also introduces you to a variety of people and you get a wider view of the world.
Did that formative experience help you in creating and playing different characters when you got into acting?
KK: I don’t think it happened that consciously, but when you meet and interact with different kinds of people you are not a frog in the well anymore.
How did you decide to choose a government school as a setting for the show?
BS: So, a very close friend of mine has been working in the education sector for the past 30 years. He has worked with a lot of schools and whenever he used to meet me, he told me incidents that occurred in government schools. I found it to be an interesting world to explore. In Hindi cinema we have had so much content which talks about college days. Even school days are shown but less and that too only from the students’ perspective. With this show, we are also showing the lives of the teachers who run such schools and that too with such limited resources.
Kay Kay, you have played such intense roles in the past, everything from cops to criminals. This time, you are having a go at comedy with the role of a clueless headmaster. What is your approach when you do a comic role?
KK: I actually don't look at it as a comedy or anything like that. I don't look at the genre when I perform. I focus on the kind of person I am playing. So, if that person is humorous, I am humorous. I am not the impromptu kind of an actor. There are some geniuses like Govinda, Jim Carrey and others who know how to make a scene comic. I belong to the other kind, the De Niros and others for whom what is written is very important. I don’t format my performance to build up to a laugh track.
Headmaster Gyaneshwar is an intriguing character. He is a bit corrupt but also has some sort of hidden conscience…
KK: Yes! I essentially needed to capture the innocence of this guy. This was the underlying quality of the character that whatever he is, there is this childlike innocence in him. Playing him in a comedic way had the risk of making him appear stupid and then the viewer thinks how come this person is the headmaster of a school. So, I needed to strike a balance.
Biswa, what did you think should be the tone of the show?
BS: I didn’t want it to be overtly funny. I wanted the conversations to be normal, everyday. The audience should find them funny and it should not have a punchline for other characters to react to. These days, we see people making comedy dramas but they are actually slice-of-life films with some jokes here and there. We consciously wanted to work on that. We focused on adding subtext to dialogue and not underlining every line. I have bet on the intelligence of the audience and would rather have them miss one or two jokes than forcing them to guffaw at everything.
It’s a comedy series but the things being discussed are actually tragic. Teachers striving to get a water cooler, children losing out on a component of their mid-day meal. Do you think humour and satire have become the only ways through which artists can now speak the truth?
BS: I think in India already our life is full of struggles and to deal with them, you need to have a sense of humour. If we had decided to approach this series with a tragic lens, I feel that would have been an endless loop. To live our lives stress free, I think there is no other way but to just laugh at these things.