Tamal Kundu
Based on the Spanish series ‘Elite,’ Netflix’s Indian Hindi-Language show ‘Class’ tells the story of three transfers students — Dheeraj Kumar Valmiki (Piyush Khati), Saba Manzoor (Madhyama Segal), and Balli Sehrawat (Cwaayal Singh) — who attend Hampton International, the fictional school for the children of the rich and powerful of India — on scholarships and their affluent classmates.
Set against the backdrop of Delhi, ‘Class’ explores the multifacetedness of Indian existence, shedding light on issues such as wealth disparity, casteism, corruption, homophobia, child neglect, and addiction. The series begins with the death of one key character and then shifts back and forth between the past and present through the rest of the season as the police try to find the truth. Here is everything you might want to know about the ending of the first season of ‘Class.’ SPOILERS AHEAD.
Class Recap
There are two distinctive timelines in ‘Class.’ In the present, Suhani Ahuja (Anjali Sivaraman), the daughter of renowned realtor Suraj Ahuja and his wife Garima, is killed. When the police arrive, they find Dheeraj “Dheeru” sitting by the dead body and arrest him. During the interrogation, he begins telling the series of events that got him there. The narrative then starts shifting back and forth between the past and present until the two timelines merge. The plot mainly focuses on the students of Hampton International and their families in the past, punctuated by the police interviewing various characters in the present.
Two months before Suhani’s murder, Dheeru, Saba, and Balli begin attending Hampton International after their old school, Nurpur Khatola Government School, is burned down in a massive fire. Suraj Ahuja is blamed for the incident in which six children were killed. To appease the public, Suraj sends all students of Nurpur Khatola to various schools across Delhi except the three mentioned above. He brings those three to Hampton International, where his children Suhani and Veer (Zeyn Shaw) study.
As Dheeru, Saba, and Balli enroll at the new school, their lives become inevitably entangled with those of their classmates. Dheeru and Suhani develop a mutual attraction, but then she meets Dheeru’s older brother Neeraj or Neeru (Gurfateh Pirzada), an anti-caste activist, and starts sleeping with him, soon becoming pregnant. Veer is initially in a relationship with Yashika Mehta (Ayesha Kanga), the topper of their class, until Saba’s arrival. Yashika becomes afraid she will not receive the Hampton Gold scholarship and asks her boyfriend to seduce Saba and film their sexual encounter. Instead, they grow genuinely close, though as Saba gets to know Veer, she becomes worried about his explosive anger.
Dhruv (Chayan Chopra), one of Veer’s closest friends, meets Saba’s brother Faruq (Chintan Rachchh) through Balli. Like his sister, Faruq wants to leave behind the circumstances he was born in. As he is not as academically gifted, Faruq has resorted to selling illegal weed. Arguably the most beautiful relationship in the show blooms between him and Dhruv. Meanwhile, Balli, the most quintessentially Delhite of the three transfer students, gets involved in a volatile ménage à trois with two privileged classmates: Koel Kalra (Naina Bhan) and Sharan Gujral (Moses Koul).
In the season 1 finale, the school hosts the prestigious Founder’s Day, and the Hampton Gold has a surprising winner. Having learned about the pregnancy, Suhani has decided to run away with Neeru. Feeling betrayed by both his brother and the girl he loves, Dheeru decides to stop them. As revelations made by Balli and Koel about his sexual orientation have put him in the crosshair of vicious mockery, Sharan grows desperate.
Class Ending: Who Killed Suhani?
The prevalent question in this season revolves around Suhani’s violent death. Suhani has always been a troubled child, much of which stems from Suraj and Garima’s disastrous parenting. She was put on a lot of meds and soon started doing non-prescription ones. Before the start of the show, Suhani, who is very much a teenager, got involved with a significantly older and married man named Mayank, who leaked her photos online, just like he had done with his other victims. When Veer learned about it, it is heavily implied that he and his friends killed Mayank.
After learning that Dheeru and Neeru’s father owes 15 lakhs rupees (1.5 million) to SK Chowdhary, a corporator in Nurpur, who is on Suraj’s payroll, Suhani tells them about the diamond-encrusted, made-out-of-precious-metals phones that Koel’s father, Tarun Kalra, collects. Neeru manages to steal these phones, and after realizing that one of those phones contains sensitive encrypted data that can send Tarun to jail, he begins blackmailing the other man for 25 lakhs rupees (2.5 million). When Neeru goes to meet Tarun, he leaves the phone with Suhani. Koel sees the other girl with the phone and unsuccessfully tries to retrieve it with Balli’s help.
Sharan sees all this and comes to believe that he can win back Koel if he can get the phone from Suhani. During their confrontation, he hits Suhani multiple times with the Hampton Gold award she received earlier because the school wanted to placate her family. He grabs the phone and goes to tell Koel what has happened. Cold and calculating as she is, Koel throws Sharan’s bloodied shirt and the award into a lake. As Dheeru testifies that he saw his brother running away from Suhani’s body, Neeru is arrested for the murder. It is revealed that Tarun promised payment to the officers investigating the murder case.
Who Is blackmailing Sharan and Koel?
When Sharan approaches Koel after killing Suhani and tells her what he has done and why he has done it, neither of them notices that Balli has come out and is watching them. As things seem to settle down after Neeru’s arrest, they both receive messages from an unknown number, telling them that the sender can maintain their silence and asking what they will get in return. They also send a photo of Sharan and Koel together, captured right after Suhani’s death. Given that Balli was standing there and reached for his phone just before the camera cut away from him, we can assume that he is the blackmailer.
Balli is modeled after Christian Varela Expósito from the original series, and Christian knows who killed Suhani in season 1, though he doesn’t blackmail Koel and Sharan’s counterpart — Carla Rosón Caleruega and Leopoldo “Polo” Benavent Villada. He tells them that he knows the truth, prompting Carla to speak to her father, Teo Rosón, who orchestrates an accident in which Christian becomes severely injured. Teo sends Christian to Switzerland for treatment after the latter promises he will never reveal the truth. Balli’s trajectory as a character in the adaptation will likely go the same way unless the writers of the Indian series decide to give him a different narrative.
Who Is the Informant?
In episode 6, Suraj is arrested for burning down Nurpur Khatola and the deaths of six children, and later in the series, Chowdhary is also detained because of the part he played in the arson case. We know that Tarun is involved in this, but the only thing that can prove this is the data in the phone that Neeru stole. Unfortunately, by the end of the season, Tarun has gotten the phone back. He also takes the money that Veer brings him so the police officers can be bribed and Suraj can be freed. Tarun makes it clear to his wife that he has no intention of doing that.
In the season finale, Tarun pays off the police officers investigating Suhani’s death ironically with the same money meant to free her father from jail. So, it is probably safe to assume that Tarun is the one who told the police about Suraj and Chowdhary’s involvement in the Nurpur Khatola burning. It is pretty clear why Koel is the way she is; she learned everything from her father. When Suraj and Chowdhary turn out to be liabilities to him, Tarun gets rid of them.
Read More: Is Netflix’s Class Based on a True Story?
