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‘Everything happening now has roots in 90s’—Why Varun Grover chose it for ‘All India Rank’

Varun Grover’s central character in ‘All India Rank’ is not the underdog. He is nearly an outsider figure in Kota’s IIT race who experiences the urgency and pressure but isn’t compelled to participate in it.

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Varun Grover’s semi-autobiographical directorial debut, All India Rank, pays tribute not just to the 1990s of cassettes, Walkmans and PCOs, but also the decade’s dawning anxiety around IIT entrance exams. The devil is really in the meticulous details presented in nearly every frame of the picture. The film transports viewers back to a less complicated yet still challenging time. A young boy in Lucknow, Vivek—played by Bodhisattva Sharma—is sent off to ‘Haridwar of coaching’, Kota, to shoulder the burden of his parents’ aspirations.

“There are many shows made with ’90s nostalgia. But I could not find the nostalgia that I have of the ’90s,” Grover told ThePrint in an exclusive interview. “So I decided to follow the dictum ‘make what you want to see’ and made a film on it myself.”

The film’s languid pace evokes late 1990s, when Madhuri Dixit crooned hits in Saajan, Mohammed Azharuddin reigned as cricket’s superstar, teenagers discovered their bodies, and secret copies of Playboy magazine passed hands. For protagonist Vivek and the people he becomes acquainted with, these pop culture elements form a crucial part of their otherwise frustrating and traumatic life in Kota. The decade of the 1990s is almost a separate character in the film, lurking quietly in the background.


Also read: ‘Loser manifesto for youth’—when Anurag Minus Verma, Varun Grover got together at Delhi museum


The recreation of ’90s

Walls scrawled with appeals to God, math formulas and cuss words establish the universe of coaching and hostel life in Grover’s All India Rank. Graphics, doodles, music and silences fill the 160-minute runtime, transporting viewers to the post-liberalisation era of optimism and restlessness but also anxiety over change.

“Everything happening now, from business to politics, has its roots in the ’90s. It gave rise to the new middle class and the success industry,” said Grover, explaining why he “had to” make a movie about this period.

Filmmaker duo Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK also tap the 1990s’ nostalgia—from mopeds and landlines to iconic hairstyles like bangs or post-Saajan long hair rage popularised by Sanjay Dutt—in their Netflix series Guns & Gulaabs, which marked the OTT debut of Dulquer Salmaan and also stars Gulshan Devaiah, Adarsh Gourav and Rajkummar Rao. Even the trousers are loose and high-waist and the love stalkerish, characteristic of nearly every other hit movie of the ‘90s.

Nostalgia marked another recent hit, Dum Laga Ke Haisha (2015). Set in 1995, the film even has a song battle to show a lover’s quarrel between its lead characters, Prem (Ayushman Khhurana), the owner of a cassette shop, who wants a ‘hot’ slim wife but ends up in an arranged marriage with an overweight Sandhya (Bhumi Pednekar). How conflict blossoms, followed by love, in a joint family setting where sounds of lovemaking and fights are devoid of any privacy, won over many hearts. Its most popular song, ‘Yeh Moh Moh Ke Dhaage’, was penned by Grover.

Both Grover’s All India Rank and Sharat Katariya’s Dum Laga Ke Haisha look at another concept that marked that decade: abstinence as a virtue. Vivek talks about how his diabetic mother fights hard to control feasting on sweets whenever she is stressed or happy, and his father who likes smoking, ultimately settling with the belief that abstinence shows character. The same goes for Prem, who is forced to curb his longing for a certain kind of life and partner by choosing the ‘reality’ of his educational qualifications and financial status. Both Prem and Vivek follow their parents’ wishes and expectations, without putting up any impassioned protest, and instead register their frustration in small, everyday acts of aggression.


Also read: India’s Tuition Republic is bigger than ever. Coaching culture is an epidemic now


The everyday trauma 

Kota has made headlines in recent years for the alarming number of student suicides, with four incidents already this year alone despite safety measures like spring device on fans. While Grover’s All India Rank may not fully capture the intense pressure with any urgency, it does weave the tragic reality of Kota into the narrative towards the end.

“For me, it was important to show it through Rinku (Ayush Pandey), who is financially and socially weaker, and more susceptible to pressure,” said Grover. Competition has increased manifold since Grover’s own days of preparing and eventually landing up at IIT-BHU. For his protagonist Vivek, IIT preparation now starts at Class 8, with the added pressure of social media and the constant assault of information.

As the landscape of competitive exams evolves, the role of technology in IIT preparation has become increasingly significant, with innovative tools and resources emerging to assist students in their journey.

The choices made in the film were deliberate for Grover, whether it was avoiding character Sarika’s (Samta Sudiksha) parents and her backstory or not dwelling on the suicides. It is Vivek’s story, and it remains so until the end. Grover’s screenplay never strays, unlike Vivek’s thoughts.

Humour is consistent in the narrative, as is the looming sense of hopelessness characterised by the massive lecture hall at Madam Bundela’s coaching classes where students are crammed to become the next IITian. The hopelessness is emphasised by Vivek’s daily routine—getting up, cycling to class, getting back, studying, and the power cuts at night. Instead of shock moments, the mundane creates the effect of the growing desperation of nearly all the students who imagine themselves as the next big thing in the world of engineering.

Even the boy who makes ‘dirty’ calls from the PCO run by Vivek’s mother to random women, is based on a character from Grover’s real life. “The guy was an IIT student, and it was a shock when we realised that even IIT boys behave like this,” said Grover. After all, once in IIT, who cares what happens to ‘character’. It is all justified by clearing the one gospel exam.

Vivek’s lack of ambition characterises the students of the time, when children were given ‘direction’ by parents, and it was expected to be followed without much questioning. Moments of respite are few and far between, with one particular instance when Vivek and his newly found friends Chandan (Neeraj Singh), Rinku and Sarika stand next to a lake, and talk about their dreams and aspirations beyond the oppressive IIT coaching world.


Also read: Selling land, borrowing money, eating less: What UPSC coaching does to poor families


Not an underdog story

Rajkumar Hirani’s 3 Idiots (2008) taught us that ‘life is a race’ and men like Joy (Ali Fazal) cannot take the pressure and lose out. But it had at its centre the concept of beating the odds, with the film’s protagonist Rancho (Aamir Khan). Indians are, after all, suckers for the triumph of the underdog story, as evident from coaching-centred shows and films like Amazon Prime Video’s Kota Factory (2019) or Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 12th Fail (2023).

But Grover’s All India Rank stands out for being anti-formulaic. In a way, it’s a film that resists the rat race it depicts, and through both Vivek’s lack of response to the question, ‘which is your aspirational rank?’ to the fragmented and often flitting narrative, Grover refuses to ‘fit in’.

Vivek, however, is not the underdog. He is just disinclined and remains a nearly outsider figure, who can experience the urgency and pressure, but does not feel compelled to participate in it.

It is about easing the pressure, at least in the film. He does not make vivek answer the question of which rank or job or college he wants to be in. He lets him be, and for the period the film is set in, and even in today’s era of cutthroat competition, it’s a triumph.

“My film is the antithesis of 12th Fail and Kota factory where I say that success is not the end-all of any struggle. Success is a manufactured desire given by the market and the middle class anxiety,” said Grover.

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