March 26, 2025 (Yes Punjab News)
In the plethora of young adult campus dramas available today, Amazon Prime Video’s Ziddi Girls has emerged as a surprisingly-fresh concept. And here’s why! What initially appeared to be just another college life-based web series, actually turned out to be a show that resonated across age groups, genders, and backgrounds, creating an unexpected inter-generational connection.
While Ziddi Girls certainly has all the elements of a campus drama – friendships, romance, and academic challenges – its appeal extends far beyond its intended target audience. The show has captured the attention of viewers from their twenties to their sixties, something that not many shows or web-series can boast of in today’s times.
What worked for the show was how they knocked on the doors of nostalgia! No matter the age, college-life and its memories for most, are ones that changed us, shaped us into completely new individuals, and became the stepping stone for who we are today.
And Ziddi Girls tapped into this emotion, thus striking the right chord with multiple generations. For older viewers, the show has served as a powerful nostalgia trip, as they get to take a trip down memory lane and recall fond and not-so-fond memories from their times on their college campuses.
Ziddi Girls creator Rangita Pritish Nandy says, “That universal nostalgia about growing up, finding yourself, finding a voice—everything that college, hostel life, being young comes along with—that is what’s making Ziddi so sticky for people across generations.
College is also possibly the most personal, most vulnerable time of our lives—caught in the crosshairs of wanting to be (stubbornly) counted as grown-ups and actually having to do the work and adult! Some tough calls there, and plenty revolutions being drafted—with oneself, with parents, with the world at large. A time of war and first loves.”
Director Shonali Bose added, “The formative years of becoming an adult are college life especially if it’s a hostel. Yoh become YOU. And it’s a time no one forgets. Ziddi so authentically captures that time that people of all generations are going down memory lane. And feeling it’s THEIR story – male or female, young or old.”
“The spirit of dialogue was the start of all our conversations when writing Ziddi Girls. A dialogue between generations and ideologies: amongst peers, teachers and parents. Between those who don’t think like you, and don’t have your language.
In these politically divisive times, it’s an attempt to connect with people who you disagree with instead of shutting them down,” Neha Veena Verma, Ziddi Girls’ writer and co-director added.
Vasant Nath, writer and co-director, agreed that the response that their show got was indeed ‘Totally unanticipated’. He says, “While Gen Z were the focus of Ziddi Girls, the show drew from writers, creators and directors who spanned multiple generations. The alchemy of the research and our personal experience lends the show the resonance audiences are experiencing across age and gender.”
Ziddi Girls also portrayed some political elements, when the girls refuse to cave in to their 7pm curfew, and raise their voice against the management curbing their freedoms.
This also served as a connecting point for the older generation viewers, as they too may have had to deal with some fundamental ideological differences with their college management. Well, the battles may be different, but the relevance of raising your voice against wrong doings, will never not resonate.
The show’s depiction of young women finding their voices and standing up for what they believe in, speaks volumes of the message that the makers intended to deliver with Ziddi Girls. And the fact that people of all age groups and generations are showering their praises, indicates to – MESSAGE RECEIVED.
The intergenerational connection that Ziddi Girls has managed to build, (a feat that other youth shows haven’t been able to achieve), proves that viewers want to watch authentic, true and relatable content that speaks to them. Ziddi Girls, has served as a bridge between generations, showcasing how certain struggles and experiences remain relevant across time.
