School of Lies & Adhura: Bullying & Toxic Authority in Boys' Boarding Schools

While School of Lies is streaming on Disney+Hotstar, Adhura is playing on Amazon Prime Video.

Posters from School of Lies and Adhura.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

"I'll teach him a lesson he will never forget," says a kid studying in a premiere boarding school in Amazon Prime Video's recent show Adhura. Beyond the conventional tropes of a supernatural thriller are the darkest aspects of human nature - bullying and the loneliness that comes from being misfits.

Another show that was released last month, School of Lies (streaming on Disney+Hotstar), also addresses the brutal consequences of bullying. And you know what the scariest part is? That the school authorities, instead of reprimanding the bullies or making them aware of the seriousness of their actions, 'punished' the victims and turned them into outcasts.

Hindi films and shows have seldom put the spotlight on bullying. We see glimpses of students being ragged and made fun of in 3 Idiots, Taare Zameen Par etc. Table No 21 was one movie that dug deep into the harrowing effects on bullying and how it can push students to depression and suicide.

With Adhura and School of Lies, we hope that there's more and more conversation around bullying and the urgent need to take actions.

Adhura

Ishwak Singh in a still from Adhura.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube screengrab)

The show is set in the fictional boys’ school, Nilgiri Valley School in Ooty. The seven episodes oscillate between two timelines - 2007, the year in which the school’s Dean is found dead and 2022, when the batch of 2007 returns to their alma mater for the 15th reunion only to be haunted by a supernatural presence. 

At the heart of the story is Adhiraj (Ishwak Singh), now a college professor, who revisits his teenage years when he found himself entangled in a triangle of friendship - with Malvika (Zoa Morani), who he used to date before she broke up on the last day of school, and with his best friend Ninad (Poojan Chhabra), who went missing immediately afterwards and has been untraceable since. 

If that didn’t complicate matters enough, in the days leading up to the reunion, a young child Vedant is seemingly possessed by a spirit. 

Shrenik Arora in a still from Adhura.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube screengrab)

Adhura does a somewhat decent job when it comes to addressing issues such as abandonment, neglect and bullying. Both Vedant and Ninad are subjected to the worst kind of harassment by their peers. Ninad is the only gay person in an all-boys school, and his classmates don’t bat an eyelid before cornering him, beating him up or constantly referring to him as “homo.” Instead of lending him a supportive ear, the teachers also consider him an embarrassment. Ninad’s only hope and source of support is Adhiraj, who fights the bullies and also encourages him to stand up for what’s wrong. A shy and introverted boy, Ninad turns to writing as a source of escape. He pens a graphic novel, 'Shadow Boy', which follows the story of a frightened and bullied child who finally gets to come out of the shadows after Phoenix Boy extends his hand of friendship.

Years pass and batches graduate, but the administration turns a deaf ear to bullying and the trauma it has on students in the campus.

The latest victim is a kid, Vedant, who becomes the target just because he is shy and reserved. The show opens with Vedant screaming for help as three of his classmates lock him up in a cupboard. When things take an ugly turn, he gets labelled as a ‘psycho’. To add to his miseries, Vedant is let down by both his parents and the school. His parents refuse to acknowledge that he might be suffering from a mental health illness, and the school bars him from stepping foot anywhere but the infirmary.

Shrenik Arora in a still from Adhura.

(Photo courtesy: YouTube screengrab)

Vedant's saviour comes in the form of the school counsellor Supriya, played by Rasika Dugal. Supriya dares to go against the administration to try and ensure that Vedant isn't completely abandoned. The show harps on the fact that sometimes it is very important to protest against the regressive and problematic actions that take place in boarding schools in the name of discipline.

School of Lies

A still from School of Lies.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube screengrab)

The setting of this show is also a private boarding school in the hills - River Isaac School of Education. When 12-year-old Shakti Salgaonkar (Vir Pachisia) goes missing, a can of worms opens up about the ‘esteemed’ school. Shakti’s mother is summoned from the city, and the principal takes over the matter. As the layers peel, other characters in the story surface and everyone is submerged in their personal problems. 

Through the show, we see the walls of security and care in an educational institution crumble. Whatever happened to Shakti becomes secondary to the darkness that engulfed him. His troubled past led him to become a compulsive liar. We see flashbacks of what a seasoned liar he is. He sweet-talks seniors, lies about his mom's cooking and even earns the distrust of his fellow housemates by cooking up stories. However, these are innocent lies.

A still from School of Lies.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube screengrab)

The lies that the seniors come up with are grave and dangerous. They have to lie to survive. Peer pressure, masculinity, rebellion, navigating sexual identities make up most of their high school years. They bully their juniors to regain a waning command over their lives. They bask in the glory of being the ‘Old Boys’ of RISE. Threatening juniors into submission gives them a skewed sense of power. “Let me teach you a lesson” and “look how I teach you a lesson” are sentences that are thrown around to assert authority. This very attitude leads to the biggest tragedy that RISE has witnessed. And this very toxic thing is questioned and called out in School of Lies.

In both the shows, certain boarding school 'rituals', which involve being tight lipped to protect oneself and sometimes one's closest friends, asserting one's superiority and picking on those who are unable to fight back, have been looked at through a critical lens.