Kota Factory's Season 3: A good instalment but should be the last

A sure-shot way to succeed in life, we are told after a certain age, is to get into prestigious engineering or medical institutes. Hundreds of thousands of teenagers and their families buy this dream, particularly in South Asia.  

The significance of good education in having a better future is perhaps not exaggerated. But what is not normal is to make engineering or medical institutes every student's raison d'etre, to make life a binary of success and failure – to put engineering and medical institutes at one and everything else at zero is a travesty. 

Yet we are often labelled this way as lab rats.

The third season of TVFs' (a video-on-demand streaming platform) 'Kota Factory' is centred around one such lab where hundreds of students toil every day to get that eventual stamp of approval, through India's 'coaching capital.'

This is also available on Netflix.  

Luckily, director Pratish Mehta and his team made it plausible to make the premise of the series look not as grim. Though visually monochromatic, the series and its stories are anything but, as the audience is taken through the highs and the lows of the protagonists' lives. 

The reality, on the other hand, remains dark. The woes depicted in the Kota Factory series impact the lives of 140 crore people (up to 35 years of age) pursuing higher education in India – according to a The Guardian report last year. 

In 2023 alone, 20 lakh students competed for just 1,40,000 spots for medical college and 10 lakh students competed for just 10,000 spots in IITs. The fame, or rather infamy, had led even Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to refer to it as India's "kashi [holy city] of education," wrote Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Shaikh Azizur Rahman in The Guardian. 

The plot

Jeetu Bhaiya, played by an immaculate Jitendra Kumar who, lately, seems unable to put a foot wrong, is the heart and soul of Season 3, and Vaibhav played by a brilliant Mayur More emotes superbly. The likes of Ranjan Raj as Meena, Revathi Pillai as Vartika, Alam Khan as Uday and Ahsaas Channa as Shivangi almost never cease to shine either.

The second season was released nearly two years ago and the third season – released on 20 June this year – seamlessly picks up where it left off. Like the previous two seasons, it takes us through the routine of the characters' personal lives, trials and tribulations of students aspiring to get into IIT. 

The starkest contrast to the previous seasons is how Jitendra Kumar's character arc changes – from "Jeetu Bhaiya" to "Jeetu Sir" to simply "Jeetu" while he finds new ways of navigating life. 

The first two seasons were building up towards the final act of the entrance examination. After years of struggles, on the day of the test, Vaibhav – from whose lens the series unfurls – fumbles to reach the examination hall on time. 

When the results come out, he's bewildered at his failure, he breaks down. The minute-long wailing monologue of Vaibhav that follows is one of the series' finest moments – incredibly well-emoted, it exacts empathy for the character. The audience – who rooted for Vaibhav – easily sinks into the depths of Maur More's performance. 

The creators of the Kota Factory had a goal to portray this race towards a seat at the IIT table as something humane, not soulless. In many instances, the journey becomes the opposite of soulless as the story follows the students undertaking a Herculean journey. 

Most of the makers of the series and the founders of TVF are IIT alumni. This has given the crafting of the story a more personal perspective. It created a real texture the audience – those who exist far away from the Kota universe – can cling to.   

What makes the journey bleak is a negative result. Despite the efforts, the ones who cannot ace the exams, are hardly able to consider their journey a happy one. Not just bad results, but the incredible pressure and daunting competition in the lead-up to the exams also prove too much for many. 

This rings true in reality. The Guardian reported that 27 students died by suicide in Kota's coaching schools in 2023, the highest number on record. 

Written by Manish Chandwani, Nikita Lalwani, Puneet Batra and Pravin Yadav, the third season produces almost nothing novel but with constant pacing, the narrative reaches its apotheosis. 
This season works as a fitting end. 

The portrayal of boulders pushed up again and again – like Sisyphus – isn't usually a great product of relish.

On the contrary, Kota Factory ends on an optimistic note. A failed Vaibhav aims to prepare for JEE once again, the background music is hopeful, and it keeps on singing the song of courage. 

There are hundreds of thousands of Vaibhavs around us in Bangladesh. 

I've known a handful of such Vaibhavs who couldn't fulfil their goals on their second try either, me being one of them. But life, more often than not, keeps on moving and keeps on taking people to places they never envisaged they would be in. 

Kota Factory, in this case, portrays an austere reality; nothing more, nothing less.