Jugaadistaan review: Sumeet Vyas, Arjun Mathur's political drama is marred by mishmash of genres, passable performances

Language: Hindi

For almost two years now Indian campuses have been deserted, unworn by the everyday chaos of adolescents trying to figure their lives. With the pandemic having squeezed campuses into 14-inch screens that simply don’t add up to the experience that the frills of on-campus life offers, a show on the many conflicted realities of an Indian university, feels timely. Lionsgate Play’s original Jugaadistaan is as the name suggests, is about a campus where everyone hustles. Politics, love, conflict and crime merge in this show about people who look at education through the dramatism of desperation rather than the sobering qualities of reluctant aspiration. The show is often uneven, but through its many moving pieces it captures the chaotic, utterly unclassifiable energy of the average Indian university.  

Politics and Indian campuses have in recent years become warring cousins that ultimately also cannot survive without each other. In fact, campuses probably embody a more vibrant political landscape than towns and cities that dictate the electoral fate of the country. Naturally then, in Jugaadistan there is an election in the offing. Bhati, played by the ever-charming Sumeet Vyas, is the college bully who wants to win at all costs. But while an election rages on campus a number of sub-plots converge to offer macro-sites of both comfort and conflict. Lucky, played convincingly by Taaruk Raina spearheads an examination scam where students appear on behalf of applicants in exchange for money. Bijoy, a professor on campus played by the mesmerising Parambrata Chatterjee, looks deeper into the murk as Khetrapal, a journalist played by the terrific Arjun Mathur looks in from the outside.

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Perhaps Jugaadistaan’s biggest challenge was to balance its rebellious, semi-serious undertone with the complicating weight of a brewing criminal scandal.

How do you show sex, vulgarity and indiscipline that campus sites offer in a show where murder, scams and investigations are struggling to find their footing as well? Quite pleasingly, none of these opposing storylines contradict each other as comedy finds a way to co-exist with crisis. Lucky’s deviousness stops short of turning into evil vice, whereas the presence of a maverick like Gopal Dutt as the face of a scam cleaves the heaviness of an issue that could so easily transform the show into noir. On the other hand, Mathur’s track of the journalist who wants to do the right thing offers conviction and steel to a setup that could very easily end up trivialising its own origin story.

Jugaadistan’s only weakness perhaps is its younger actors who though spiky and fit for their roles rarely clutch beyond their types. Ahsaas Channa in her nth role as a student, is reliable but courtesy of her previous outings, ultimately forgettable. Lukram Smil as the perennially harassed Kenny needed more meat for having to walk the tightrope of racial politics, with just a gut feeling for survival in hand. There is an interesting sub-plot involving Bhati and the resident ‘influencer’ Aparna that points to the widening discourse about reach and exposure in classrooms but it struggles to become more than the sum of its parts because Aparna, played by Kavya Trehan doesn’t have much to chew on other than entitlement. Compared to Bhati’s affable, disarming exterior she automatically comes across as stiff and uncertain.

While the election is one half of this sprawling story, the darkness is shouldered by Chatterjee and Mathur, two actors in their prime, operating head and shoulders above everyone in sight. With little screen time both actors deliver gracefully authentic performances in a series that can often feel lightweight because of its younger performers. There are good ideas here, but maybe too many of them floating around waiting to be embraced. Though the show somehow manages to balance its contrasting tones, sticking with one may have been more rewarding. A word here for Gopal Dutt, whose comedic sense and performed naivety is always a treat, irrespective of what show you see him in. From the chilling _Delhi Crime_ to the ludicrously talkative Nadeem here, Dutt often seems to be in similar roles and manages to confound expectations still.

The show, though it can drag and sprawl unnecessarily at times manages to at least sustain enough novelty to make you want to what is underneath its mish-mash of genres and a handful of passable performances by the youngsters. In Vyas, Chatterjee, Mathur and the reliably memorable Gopal Dutt, the show has enough performers who if they fire on all cylinders are capable of sustaining even the barest of scripts. And though Jugaadistan doesn’t always crackle or combust, it remains engaging enough to seek the ends of both its most intimate and political battles. It’s the latter that headlines the show, where the former could have been somewhat, better fleshed. Nonetheless, Jugaadistan though it doesn’t always sizzle, simmers enough to hold onto you.

Jugaadistan is streaming on Lionsgate Play.

Manik Sharma writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between.

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