13th Series Review:

The culture of streaming in India has largely been shaped by a post-pandemic course correction. In its formative years, right before the pandemic, there was still some watchability in whatever little that was produced. It seemed to have changed somewhere between 2020 and 2023, with newer platforms being announced for newer stories to be told, which slowly started incessantly catering to emerging trends. Shows became IPs, stories turned into content, target groups were diligently studied with a greater reliance on data and the corporatisation was complete. This pent-up frustration of the perennially heartless storytelling is perhaps fittingly expressed right in the opening monologue of Sony LIV’s new show, 13th: Some Lessons Aren’t Taught In Classroom, where our protagonist, Ritesh (Paresh Pahuja), working at an investing firm to fund startups, loses it during a pitch by two emerging entrepreneurs. “It is a crappy idea which is exactly like the last ten startups that we have invested in. It is useless, redundant and unimaginative,” he says to his boss during the pitch. It is an energetic opening and also one that carries the risk of self-parody for how unknowingly it can ring true in the context of Indian streaming. Isn’t there a similar, cocky conscience keeper in the studios too?

If there is, they would be rendered jobless the next day, as our protagonist, Ritesh, who decides to leave the corporate world after being disillusioned with its operations. He finds a purpose when he comes across a coaching class, ‘Competishun’, run by his idealistic mathematics professor from the past, Mohit Tyagi (a compelling Gagan Dev Riar). Mohit is driven by an aim to bring the right education to the masses, treating his work less as a business opportunity and more as a means to bring larger change. Ritesh, who was stuck in the corporate loop and finds resonance in Mohit’s vision, doesn’t really have a novel character arc. He is a patch of Mohan Bhargava from Swades (2004) stuck in the Kota Factory world.

Creator-writer: Sameer Mishra

Director: Nishil Sheth

Cast: Gagan Dev Riar, Paresh Pahuja, Girija Oak Godbole, Pradnya Motghare, Abhishek Ranjan, Keshav Mehta, Jai Kishan, Ashish Raghav, Ajay Chakraborty and Rajendra Bhatia

Streamer: Sony LIV

The show is set in two timelines, with the other one taking us back twenty years when Ritesh was a genius student who failed the JEE (Mains) exam to get into the premier Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). That’s when he decides to take a drop year (called the 13th year, which gives the show its rather obscure name) and prepare for the exam one more time by enrolling at a coaching institute in Kota, where Mohit is a passionate professor. Since the 2010s, stories have explored this setting so extensively that it no longer evokes nostalgia but rather exhaustion. The screenplay doesn’t take us beyond what we have already visited more powerfully in the TVF brand of storytelling, which has a series for every field and stage of academics. 13th is just filled with repetitive instances of Rohit’s arrogance on display, which don't remain effective after a point. Even his journey in the present time to find investors for Competishun is devoid of any real hustle, as the writers are satisfied in merely making him call up probable investors. He doesn’t have any groundbreaking strategies to build a new EdTech company for which he left his high-paying job. The show is also not as intensive in its critique of the EdTech world, even when it tries to position itself as the rebel. It just seems far too detached from reality.

The performances, however, remain consistently placed, with Scam 2003: The Telgi Story (2023) star Gagan rendering a common-man charm to his on-screen presence. The more dramatic portions are reserved for Paresh, who is instantly believable as the blunt corporate employee. He falters a bit in the flashbacks, appearing to be more mature than the required age, his persona lacking a touch of innocence. It is not much the actor’s shortcoming but more of the makers' inability to render a strong personality to the filmmaking. The show carries a familiarity even in the frames, perhaps a call-back to Sony LIV’s visual language, where the scenes are well-balanced with the lighting and the sets don’t carry extravagant baggage. Along with setting the story in the particular niche of corporate pedantism and EdTech startups, it has to bear some resemblance to the streamer’s other outings too. Like how there’s an overbearing plasticity in some of Netflix’s recent releases or Prime Video’s penchant for either recreating a subdued, realistic look or vaguely popping up the colours. Shows in the new-age streaming scene are also products that have to be packaged a certain way, defined less by story needs and more by market flavour. It is the exact sentiment which fuels the rousing opening monologue in 13th, against the slimy rules of the startup world. The show’s overlaying, not-so-subtle message proclaims: some lessons aren’t taught in classrooms. Well, just how creativity doesn’t prosper in boardrooms.