Moving ahead from the first season of LAAKHON MEIN EK, this is a pleasant surprise as an entertaining educational satire representing the present generation’s struggle with the competitive examinations. Focusing on KOTA in Rajasthan, a city known to be the hub of reputed coaching institutes, the term FACTORY in the title refers to the process - in which students are treated as mere products and their families are charged a bomb to prepare these quality products ensuring their secured future.
In the present world, where we regularly get to hear awful news of students taking drastic steps, not able to cope up with the pressure of clearing competition exams, KOTA FACTORY presents the scenario in a lighter tone, wherein students are divided in different sections and then taught by different teachers too as per their academic performance. Revealing the questionable strategy of better teachers being assigned to brighter students, the series thankfully focuses on the adorable relationship between the students and their favourite teacher, which has rarely been the subject of any Hindi film or series before.
Even Rajkumar Hirani’s 3 IDIOTS didn’t have that in focus, which was in a different way presented in Mahesh Bhatt’s SIR (1993) and Prakash Jha’s HIP HIP HURRAY (1984) much before Hirani’s blockbuster.
The five-part series is reportedly also the first web-series in black and white, probably representing the colourless, monotonous life of students living in Kota, mechanically spending their important teen years preparing for the exams.
Apart from the original and unique subject, what actually makes KOTA FACTORY excel are the performances from both the young and the matured actors. Where the youngsters remain fascinatingly real (featuring Mayur More, Alam Khan, Ranjan Raj, Arun Kumar and more), the matured are a treat to watch led by Jitendra Kumar as Jeetu Bhaiya, who truly remains the USP of the series without any doubt. In fact take out Jitendra Kumar out of KOTA FACTORY and the series will lose its major pull, falling back to just being above average.
A big number of youngsters as well as the grown ups would easily relate to the adorable conversations between the students and their Jeetu Bhaiya. The character is sure going to remind you of your favourite teacher in school or tuition center, whom you could even call at 1-2pm at night asking for some serious help. Thankfully such characters are not mere fantasy of the writers as we have actually met and lived with teachers like Jeetu Bhaiya in our college days. I am sure everyone reading, must be having his or her own memories of long interactions with their own Jeetu Bhaiya back in the school/college days.
Directed by Raghav Subbu, KOTA FACTORY creates an almost flawless world of students coming from different states with their cultural difference, their relationships with various teachers and rivalries between the famous coaching institutes. The production, art and technical qualities are worth appreciating along with an apt and impressive background score including an original song too.
Having said that, the series does have some major shortcomings, which honestly are extremely important ones, capable of changing your complete outlook towards the superb attempt made and its core purpose.
To begin with, KOTA FACTORY is a series talking about the big business of commercial coaching centers running in every city of the country (parallel to the schools) but is never interested in saying anything against the questionable trend at all. It neither criticizes the over-existence of such centers nor strongly points towards the exploitation of students practiced by their influential owners (cruelly snatching away their childhood, interests and hobbies). On the contrary, the series celebrates the system and avoids moving into any critical zone accepting the mushrooming institutes as a norm.
Interestingly there is a solid reasoning behind the bias, which gets revealed when we see Special Thanks prominently being given to Bansal Classes Pvt. Ltd in the credits (also for using their location) and the creators themselves promoting a tutorial mobile app wearing black T-shirts with the app’s name/logo on it.
So when the series itself has been supported/sponsored or probably co-produced too by the renowned coaching centers and educational apps then how can the writers or director criticize the system conflicting with their sponsor’s very purpose of promoting the coaching culture.
As a matter of fact, it was after watching the creators wearing the T-shirts with the app’s name that I realized why the episodes had so long sequences focusing on a mobile app inserted forcibly.
May be its unavoidable in the present scenario but such at-your-face brand promotion, at times does hurt the project and the writer/director’s actual, unbiased vision hampering the overall impact. On a different note, the over-exposure given to a mobile educational app also made me think that isn’t the inclusion of both the teachers and an educational app together, contradicting with each other?
Anyway, despite these limitations KOTA FACTORY still remains a worth watching web-series indeed, especially because of Jeetu Bhaiya taking you back in time remembering your own teachers.
Therefore do go for it and have an enjoyable time-travel along with the young ones in the family at the earliest. As an added feature, the web-series is also officially available at Youtube. So you can easily watch it right away with a simple click.
Rating : 3.5 / 5 (The series loses a big one star because of its biased one sided approach and loud brand promotion)
