Kota Factory (Season 2) review: Heartfelt drama is back for a satisfying second year

Vaibhav Pandey (Mayur More), IIT aspirant from Itarsi, is back in the second season of The Viral Fever’s web-series Kota Factory. In the first season, the newcomer to Kota found his feet in India's coaching-class capital. Joining the lower-ranked Prodigy classes, Vaibhav settled down eventually with his batchmates, developed a crush, and began to enjoy his time in Kota.

However, at the end of the excellent Season 1, which was premiered on YouTube, Vaibhav left Prodigy to join the more prestigious Maheshwari Classes once he had cleared their entrance exam. Since they had rejected him at the beginning of Season 1, it was all the more satisfying.

But as the second season begins, Vaibhav finds himself withdrawing in the same dread of whether he will be good enough to clear the exam and become that elusive topper.

Directed by Raghav Subbu, Kota Factory’s strong second season displays the agony and ecstasy of those preparing to take the JEE (joint entrance examination for the Indian Institutes of Technology). While we see a more confident Vaibhav this time, the naive Meena (Ranjan Raj) and street-smart Uday (Alam Khan) come to his aid once again.

Along with the students’ continuing struggles, there is a dual focus on the plans of rockstar teacher Jeetu Bhaiya (Jitendra Kumar) to launch his own institute, Aimers. Fan favourite Jeetu Bhaiya tells it like it is — not everyone’s dreams in Kota are going to come true. In fact, the statistics are against them as the majority of the students are going to face heartbreak and fail to crack the notorious exam.

Despite this, Vaibhav and his friends slog away in the hope that they might. Jeetu Bhaiya’s words of wisdom ring true for many of them. In addition to being their mentor, he is their agony aunt and gets them through some difficult personal spots as well. The former IIT-ian knows what it takes to make it and reasons with them as a peer.

This season, Jeetu Bhaiya also faces some hiccups along the way as his goals for Aimers don’t materialize fully and, like every year, many of the students don’t clear the exam. Written by Abhishek Yadav, Manoj Kalwani, Puneet Batra and creator Saurabh Khanna, the second season again balances moments of emotion and humour deftly while laying bare the gruelling education system that creates a rigmarole which students must endure to get through.

Other shows and films on the demanding engineering exam have come before Kota Factory and I am sure others will follow, but this campus drama has a unique, earnest voice that distinguishes it from the rest. For starters, it is the stylistic choice to shoot the show in black and white. The five-episode series begins in colour and chooses a particular moment where the colour is drained from the narrative, much like cold water being poured on the students' dreams.

Subbu and director of photography Shreedutta Namjoshi also present the locations and Kota as a maze (through drone shots) that the young students must navigate. The casting for the show by Shiv Chauhan and Ashish Khare is so apt — More, Raj, Khan along with Revathi Pillai as Vartika, Ahsaas Channa as medical student Shivangi, and Urvi Singh as Meenal are believable, interesting characters whom you begin to care for soon enough. Ranjan Raj as the naive Balmukund Meena and Khan as the carefree Uday stand out as the young cast delivers yet again.

More and Jitendra Kumar as Vaibhav and Jeetu Bhaiya are the main links to the rest of the Kota universe, and the two actors carry this second round. Jitendra Kumar, a TVF regular, has the opportunity to give us more insight into Jeetu Bhaiya and what motivates him.

In the first season, while Vaibhav’s arc took the most prominence, here, other characters are also fleshed out bit by bit. The series is written and directed by men, but there is at least an attempt this time to address the under-represented difficulties faced by female students.

There are a few niggles about this season’s storylines when some arcs are introduced only to disappear, but I suspect that will probably be tied up in the next season, which looks very likely.

The follow-up to the acclaimed first season lives up to expectation and keep us interested in the lives of these ordinary students who are hoping to get the golden ticket to their future. Kota Factory is another win for The Viral Fever.

Kota Factory Season 2 is now available on Netflix.