'Adolescence' is a call for conversation, compassion

This week I want to take a break from politics and geopolitics and talk to you about a Netflix series which should be mandatory viewing in homes and schools everywhere in the world.

- Barkha Dutt

When I first heard all the fulsome praise for Adolescence, the stirring British drama centred around a 13-year-old accused of murder, I was sceptical. As someone whose secret vice is an addictive consumption of the British procedural, I thought that perhaps for the Indian audience who had been fed on a diet of Netflix's more garish, flamboyant fare, it was the unique understatedness of the British drama that was a relatively new experience.

Then there was the question of how bleak it seemed. Did I really want to be saddened and depressed by the story of an adolescent killer? I almost missed the most humane and nuanced television content created in decades.

It may be set in the United Kingdom, but it holds up, in the most visceral way possible, a mirror to all we have become and are in danger of losing every day. Adolescence is not just for parents. It is for and about all of us.