Lately, crime, politics, corruption and hate have been seeping out of every streaming platform.
By the time Garmi falls, the tiredness has already set in, observes Deepa Gahlot.

For most directors, the first film has to mean something special. But not everyone gets the chance to revisit it.

Tigmanshu Dhulia’s 2003 film haasil took a look at campus politics in Uttar Pradesh. Twenty years later, in his web series, he goes back to Garmi.

As Dhulia did haasilthe idea was novel, the treatment was badass, the still raw actors (Jimmy Shergill, Hrishitaa Bhatt, Irrfan) worked well for the subject.

Lately, crime, politics, corruption and hate have been seeping out of every streaming platform. By the time Garmi falls, tiredness has already set in.

No matter how direct the story is told and how authentically the milieu is recreated, the first reaction is dismay – another show about gang violence and machismo in Uttar Pradesh?

Arvind Shukla (Vyom Yadav), from a middle-class Lalgunj family, is the hope of his parents and two sisters that he will study Political Science at Trivenipur University, pass the UPSC entrance exam, enter the public service and improve their standard of life.

On his first day in the new city, he offers to pay a man’s food bill and falls down a rabbit hole of caste politics and rampant anarchy.

The stranger happens to be a supporter of Bindu Singh (Puneet Singh), the charismatic student union president, and helps Arvind get a hostel room.

This act of random kindness further traps the serious boy who only wants to learn.

The leader who controls the university has already enrolled in the electoral politics of the future and wields great power.

Bindu has the support of the city’s corrupt police officer, Mrityunjay Singh (Jatin Goswami), who dreams of raising an army of Kshatriya boys to reclaim caste glory.

Govind Maurya (Anurag Thakur), the OBC’s student leader, who is aided by a religious guru and wrestling coach Bairagi Baba (Vineet Kumar), is hot on Bindu’s heels.

They are all, without exception, for sale and ruthless.

They blackmail and kill with impunity because even the prime minister needs the incendiary power of hundreds of boys following their leaders like sheep.

The powder keg of caste loyalty and greed can be ignited with the smallest spark, Arvind discovers.

In the clutches of young love, trying out the college production of hamletAs he studies English to improve himself, he watches in helpless horror as his girlfriend Surabhi (Disha Thakur) is chased to death by a group of wild, sneering boys.

His wealthy friend Ajay Jaiswal (Dhirendra Gautam), whose father (Pankaj Saraswat) funds the winning side, helps him exact revenge, which means Arvind has crossed the Rubicon to become like the men he loathes.

Arvind may believe his fight is fair, but for the likes of Baba Bairagi and Mrityunjay, he’s a pawn in the larger power game they are constantly engaged in.

When they can use his popularity with the students to further their ends, they are not averse to pulling strings – whether it’s to arrest and torture him or channel his anger to their own ends. As Bairagi says at one point, a leader who doesn’t have a few criminal charges against him is just a social worker.

Rampant casteism and the breakdown of law and order in the north Indian states are constantly in the news. Dhulia, who also wrote the show (with Kamal Pandey), doesn’t reveal anything the viewer doesn’t already know.

It is tragic when young men have nothing to do but become idiots or blind servants to these hooligans, but even worse when they are allowed to run amok.

There’s a smug indulgence in the way gruesome violence is filmed, and it does so without flinching at amorality.

There seems to be an implicit endorsement of the malevolence of the boys-to-be-boys, as if to say if universities are hotbeds of politics rather than centers of learning, then what is someone like Arvind to do?

His aggression is justified to deal with his temper.

The narrator is a former student leader, Lal Bahadur (Satyakam Anand), who wanders the university like a disillusioned ghost, observing the destruction of hope and innocence.

Women have no place in this universe.

Bairagi always has three female musicians playing live for him at all times, which is actually more uncomfortable to look at than the secondary position accorded to women unless she dresses and behaves like a martial poet, Sakshi (Apoorva Singh). yourself like a man.

There is no punishment and no redemption because everyone is either weak or evil, only the degree varies.

The actors there Garmi – mostly fresh faces – are all sincere and do a good job.

Vyom Yadav, Puneey Singh, and Anurag Thankur stand out from a crowd of general racquet types.

Mukesh Tiwari gets top billing for a short and thankless role.

Pravessh Rana’s entry towards the end hints at a Season 2.

Hopefully it balances out some of the unsavory excesses of the first season.

Garmi Stream on SonyLIV.

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