New Delhi: Physics Wallah founder Alakh Pandey opens every video lesson with a signature greeting: “Hello Bachhon”. The line is now the title of a new Netflix series on Pandey’s rise as India’s richest teacher. Created by Abhishek Yadav and directed by Pratish Mehta, the five-part show traces how Pandey, played by Viineet Kumar Siingh, scaled a bootstrapped YouTube channel into an ed-tech unicorn.
In an interview with ThePrint on Friday, Abhishek Yadav recalled how he got the idea for the show.
“I paid Rs 2 lakh for my IIT-JEE coaching. Now Physics Wallah is giving that coaching for just Rs 4,000. The ed-tech sector had negative connotations because of BYJU’s fiasco, and here’s a man who is changing the space of education. That’s how the idea came about,” said Yadav.
A graduate of IIT Bombay who also briefly coached students, Yadav mined his experience with the coaching ecosystem for Kota Factory (2019-24). For Hostel Daze (2019-23), he drew on his time as a first-year student at IIT. Hello Bachhon returns to the world of coaching, but the story it tells is very different.
“For me the biggest challenge was how to make it different from Kota Factory. Jeetu Bhaiya [in Kota Factory] teaches a hundred students in a classroom, but when Pandey and his teachers teach, there are 10,000 students. I had to redesign workplace drama for the show,” said Yadav.
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Kota Factory vs Hello Bachhon
In Kota Factory, Jeetu sir (Jitendra Kumar) pushes back against the assembly-line style of teaching in Kota’s coaching centres. The character is based on popular educator Nitin Vijay, widely known as ‘NV Sir’. As a student, Alakh Pandey said he accessed pirated recordings of Vijay’s classes while preparing for exams, which later influenced how he approached teaching.
Those early struggles led Pandey to start a YouTube channel of his own, which would grow into one of India’s biggest ed-tech platforms.
Pratish Mehta, who also directed the third season of Kota Factory, says Alakh Pandey’s impact as a teacher is massive because of his methods.
“What excited me about the show is how widespread the impact of a teacher like Alakh is. But unlike in a regular classroom, the teacher is teaching students he does not know at all. So he has to keep the class interactive, crack jokes and keep his students interested, with no immediate responses from the other side,” said Mehta.
The difference between the two shows is also the economic backgrounds of the students and their families. To send a child to study in Kota, a family needs a degree of financial stability. Physics Wallah’s students, however, often come from economically weaker backgrounds.
The show brings together stories of different students across the country — an impoverished villager from Bihar, a Mumbai slum dweller, a young woman in an orthodox Haryana family, a bright cricketer torn between academia and sports.
Hello Bachhon also depicts the rat race to get admission in Kota’s top coaching institutes and the steep costs attached to the dream of studying at an IIT.
“This show is not just about Alakh changing the lives of the students, but it shows the community which uplifts a person — it could be family, friends or even siblings,” said Mehta.
The trailer echoes that idea, when a fictional Physics Wallah student says: “When one person climbs out of the well of poverty, he also pulls out five other people. But before that can happen, those five also have to push that one person out.”
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Finding the right Physics Wallah
Viineet Kumar Singh is no stranger to gritty, intense roles, from the struggling boxer in Mukkabaaz to Danish Khan in Gangs of Wasseypur and the aspiring writer Farogh in Superboys of Malegaon.
Mehta and Yadav considered several actors for the lead role, but said they quickly realised Siingh was the right fit to play the small-town educator.
“Vineet and Alakh grew up just two hours away in Uttar Pradesh. When Vineet speaks, there is a cadence that is similar between the two,” said Mehta.
To prepare for the series, Yadav met not only Pandey but also the tech team, teachers, and Physics Wallah co-founder Prateek Maheshwari. He also independently met students.
“There is not a single reel related to Pandey and Physics Wallah that I have not watched. I would even comb through the comments to see how students were responding not just to him, but to the many testimonials about the coaching. I also attended the classes online,” said Yadav.
The research and pre-production lasted about a year and a half. Yadav also spoke with founders of other ed-tech platforms. When he visited Pandey’s office, he observed the educator’s open-door policy and the steady stream of students who came to meet him.
“People ask me what the reason for making this is. I say that everyone is making propaganda films and I am feeling left out. So this show is my propaganda — education should be available to all, because it is the greatest leveller,” said Yadav with a smile.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)