Alma Matters: Inside the IIT Dream Analysis

Alma Matters: Inside the IIT Dream (2021)

Directed by: Pratik Patra, Prashant Raj
Streaming on Netflix. 

We've seen such stories in 3 Idiots, the shows by TVF like Kota Factory, and Aspirants - but I'd say such stories have to be told again and again in different forms - till the narrative is changed, or at least till there is a duality in the narrative amongst all age groups. Do you push for excellence, or you be happy with what you have - the life altering question that could define who you are as a person. I'm not taking either side, I'm saying both sides should get to see the other one. To be able to make a choice as to which side you want to take - one should be equipped with the ability to think - and I think we should equip one with the ability to think rather than enforcing our worldviews on them because "they don't know". This show succeeds in doing that, unlike Aspirants - where success was sometimes corelated to being selfish or arrogant, and we mostly empathize with people who don't make it. In this show, we also see people who get jobs, and are filled with boundless joy. We also see people who quit and commit suicide. Everything exists. Excellence. Mediocrity. Satisfaction. Resent. Happiness. Despair. 

Being in an NIT, I could see that a life of experiences in college were similar - perhaps with a lesser sense of academic pressure. There were a few very interesting B-roll shots which actually made me feel strongly - after the entire 'illu' event - they show us a few shots of rain in the campus before getting into the suicide story - and the sound and the visuals of those few shots was so good that it immediately transported me to the rainy days in the campus of NIT Bhopal. It's interesting how a B-roll shot can do something like this. I liked the fly-on-the-wall where the presence of the filmmakers is not felt, perhaps because the people who they were capturing would've probably gotten comfortable, and kind of used to them filming. There are scenes of students smoking, shirtless in their hostel rooms discussing wide range of topics - from random shit, to deep philosophical observations. That's how college students are, they are either as silly as a monkey or as spiritual as a baba.