What’s true for JEE, as for UPSC, is that it’s not merely an exam. As most middle-class Indians will know, it’s a lifestyle — more than a sub-culture, only less than religion.
A still from Aspirants: Pre...Mains... Aur Life
Aspirants: Pre...Mains... Aur Life
On: YouTube
Creators: Arunabh Kumar, Shreyans Pandey
Cast: Naveen Kasturia, Shivankit Singh Parihar, Abhilash Thapliyal
Rating: ***1/5
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This series from the youth collective TVF is in many ways a worthy successor to the chilling/iconic Kota Factory (2019). As compliments go, that’s humongous praise. That both shows are, from a commercial intent, simply an extended advertising campaign for an online tutorial service (Unacademy) — the product placement that repeatedly tests patience for an otherwise pliant viewer — is just the sad part of the analogy.
The great news is how remarkably/realistically the show studies the lives of the universal young — coping with India’s education system. Which is essentially an examination system. And so it works equally well, if you’re old — there’s much nostalgia to be derived. If not, it’s almost your life, before the small screen.
Old Rajinder Nagar as a coaching colony in Delhi is to the UPSC (IAS entrance) exam, what the mega-monastery Kota is to IIT aspirants. What’s true for JEE, as for UPSC, is that it’s not merely an exam. As most middle-class Indians will know, it’s a lifestyle — more than a sub-culture, only less than religion.
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For multiple reasons, of course. Chiefly, you can make multiple, annual attempts to crack this test, which is a full-time job anyway. Going by figures on this show, only 1,000 among 12 lakh get through. The syllabus (at least for the common ‘general studies’ paper) is the vast universe itself. If you don’t eventually clear the test, there’s little you can do with all the acquired/rote learning. It’s a zero-sum game. Your days, weeks, months, years simply go waste.
What better way to remotely navigate this dark tunnel, with a faint light at the end of it, than this five-part series, about a few young men and women, all of whom staring at their last attempt at the UPSC. After this point, they’re there, or apparently nowhere.
This middle-class Dil Chahta Hai, flitting between two timelines (of, when they were together preparing for “competition”, and thereafter) particularly focuses on three friends. One of whom eventually makes it to the IAS — that’s Naveen Kasturia, TVF/YouTube’s very own Rajkummar Rao; seeming a cross between Newton (2017) and Ayushmann Khurrana from Article 15 (2019) as a bureaucrat. The Rao reference is high praise, again.
Taking away nothing from the sheer surfeit of such sorted, unseen/untested star-actors that Internet throws up, series after series, that it’s hard not to be awed each time. In this case, for instance, the other friends on this show — Shivankit Singh Parihar (Guri), Abhilash Thapliyal (SK), Sunny Hinduja (Sandeep Bhaiya)...
All of whom will no doubt get memorialised in memes. Because, besides their performances, their characters have been written so well. As is this show. If anything you miss seeing even more of these characters — a mini-series doesn’t seem enough. You may wish to survey deeper than their love for a woman, lost or found. Who are these folks at the core?
Faces of small town India — where civil services remain still an unshakeable passion, given proximity to the powers of the DM, the most important person in India’s ruling hierarchy, after the PM, and the CM! This keeps the sheen of the IAS still polished, and alive. But what if you don’t make it there?
The lines about having a Plan B in life will deeply resonate with the college-goer, who’s not the only one staring at the sun. We’ve all been through this before.
Sunny Bhaiya instantly reminded me of an MA student from Assam, who’d moved in next-door to my college room — for months, he’d go invisible after sunlight, studying for IAS. Observing him closely put me off such an aspiration for good. I didn’t know him. He changed my life. The interior shots of the library, and exterior sequences of the local teashop, bring back similar memories.
This connect is hard to miss. Who does this better than TVF? For over half a decade or so — with shows like Pitchers (2015), Permanent Roommates (2014), and most recently, the stellar Panchayat (2020) — they’ve surely but subtly managed to cover the precious gap between popular entertainment, and lived desi experiences.
Heralding an invasion of small town India into the young Internet mindscape. They are to YouTube, what filmmakers like Ram Gopal Varma, Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Bhardwaj et al were to mainstream Bollywood back in the late ’90s/early noughties. Aspirants is fine addition in that regard. Waiting eagerly still for Kota Factory 2.
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