Kota Factory 2, More  Of The Same

Directed  by  Raghav Subbu

Rating: ** ½

The  USP  of  the  first season  of Kota Factory, its  uniqueness, audacity and frankness are downsized  in Season 2. Kota, the  coaching capital of India  , is  a little town in Rajasthan which has over the years become the educational centre for all youngsters aspiring to qualify  into the prestigious  IIT (Indian Institutes Of Technology). The  fierce competitiveness of the students is  matched by the rivalry among  the  coaching institutes of Kota who fight tooth  and nail to get the  best students  into their domain.

All this  was  packaged  into the first season  of Kota Factory in 2019 with a flair for  understatement  and  a dramatic dilution that  scoffed at  easy resolutions. Season 2 has  nothing  new to say.The  students   are stalemated into a stubborn status quo. The three protagonists Vaibhav(Mayur More) , Meena(Ranjan Raj) and  Uday(Alam Khan) are still struggling to make it into the  ITT.At the  end  of Season 2, they’ve still not made  it. This  can  only mean, there is Season 3 coming up.

A  sobering thought,  indeed. Kota Factory Season 2,  shot in monochrome  like the first season(why the  fancy  back-and-white  photography?) is dreary drab and  a  drag.  The  protagonists  who  seemed  to  underscore their overweening ambitions  with  shards  of  shredded  humour  are this time  more embittered than  hopeful.More passé than passed  with honours.

Of course  there  is their beloved Jeetu Sir,a role model with  pierced ears  and flaring nostrils who  loves  the students  and  rasa malai,  on  that order.He is   some kind of  a messiah for the hero-worshipping  boys. Played by  Jitendra Kumar(Ayushmann Khurrana’s  gay partner  in  Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhaan). Jeetu Bhaiya  comes across more as  as ironic than  iconic.

Still, there is  no telling about tastes. I am told  the Kota  students  have their quota  of  heroes  among teachers. And that they take  a fancy to the unlikeliest of  teachers. Jeetu Bhaiyya is not only a mentor guide and counselor , this time he  also opens his  own coaching  institute  which he has chosen to call  Aimers.

How  very innovative. If only the scriptwriter(Saurabh Khanna) had shown  more  of a tilt towards adventure, taken the characters  forward !  The protagonists  seem frozen in  time as  the discuss syllabus  , books, girls  and masturbation. A whole  chunk  of  Episode 2 has the mythic Jeetu Bhaiya giving gyan to one  of  the  protagonist  Meena  on  masturbation. Refreshingly  even  his female  friend talks about the  “m”  words  with unabashed single mindedness.

All this adds  up to nothing new in Kota Factory. Let’s  put it this way. If you were to skip Season 2 and gone on to Season 3(provided there is  another season)  you’d have missed nothing. Kota Factory 2 is  reflective of the stagnancy  in the lives of  the  ITT aspirants, struggling with malnutrition, a  non-recreational  routine  and   a  growing sense of  why-am-I-here .

A  new student  Sushrut(Vaibhav Thakkkar) asks what all educationists  should: why only ITT?  I have a more immediate  question: why another season  of a series  that  offers no growth to  its  characters?