B.E. Rojgaar review: A timely comedy that balances ‘buddy humour’ with unemployment commentary

According to data released by the think-tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), India’s unemployment rate was at a worrying 7.8 per cent in June, resulting in nearly 13 million jobs being lost. Now, this is partly explained by the seasonal lull in agricultural activity right now, and CMIE expects a partial reversal of this trend in the months ahead. But what was truly a red flag for economic observers was the fact that 2.5 million salaried jobs were also lost in June, a high number by any standards. We now know that companies like Ola, Byjus, Unacademy et al have laid off thousands of people between them these last few months. Clearly, the ‘educated unemployed’ demographic is going to be one of the biggest challenges India faces over the next 5-10 years. Directed by Sarang Sathaye, the frequently funny new Marathi web series B.E. Rojgaar (all episodes now available on YouTube) is based upon the simple premise of three unemployed engineers and their quest to find good salaried jobs in Pune. Significantly, the show is sponsored by Scaler, an Indian learning platform that services early career tech professionals, upgrading their skills and offering mentorships with older, established pros from the industry. Piyu (Sai Tamhankar), Akshay (Jagdish Kannam) and Papdya (Sambaji Sasane) live together in a rented Pune apartment and their job hunt occupies most of their waking hours. The immensely likeable lead trio are all very different from each other in terms of temperament — Akshay is meek and gentle, Papdya is exuberant and canny while Piyu is resilient, level-headed and fiercely loyal to her friends. Together, the three friends face a variety of problems and bleakly funny situations, each connecting to their ongoing unemployment in one way or another. An extended gag in the very first episode is clearly intended as a plug for Scaler’s services, but it is an effective scene nonetheless. Akshay, the most submissive among the three friends, is very close to falling for a counterfeiter’s wily charms — this man specialises in falsifying corporate documents and he can produce fake employment records at software firms for you (for a handsome fee, of course). This unnamed character is a neat way to illustrate an empirical truth — in times of scarcity, various bootlegger or middlemen-type functionaries emerge in an unregulated market. Akshay, as is his wont, dithers for a bit before insisting that his ‘Scaler mentor’ had advised him along the lines of “skills over degrees” and that he feared being caught and blacklisted from all the companies in the city. It’s a charming little scene, even if the embedded advertising takes a little bit of lustre off the writing. Piyu, meanwhile, is hiding the fact of her unemployment from her parents, who live in a village that’s an overnight bus ride away from Pune. She avoids video calls so that her folks don’t know she has two male flatmates — later, she avoids video so that her folks don’t see her working as a security guard, a job she clearly feels uncomfortable doing but has to anyway, to make ends meet. In another very funny sequence, we see the three friends being confronted by their landlord’s son, who is about to evict them because they haven’t paid the rent for the last three months. In the middle of his rant, though, he is interrupted by his irate girlfriend, who complains that the two of them never get any privacy. The wily Papdya offers a win-win solution for all parties concerned, inspired by the movie The Apartment. Tamhankar’s performance makes Piyu the character you’re always rooting for. There’s a controlled fury to her indignation. When she’s talking to her father with a mixture of affection and exasperation (he’s asking her to get married and become a housewife) we can feel both halves of her reaction intimately. When she’s standing up for Akshay and Papdya we can see the spirit of underdog solidarity shining through. This is another very convincing performance from Tamhankar who was also excellent in the recent SonyLiv show Pet Puraan . The makers of the show, Bharatiya Digital Party, are being compared to TVF these days. The parallels are not difficult to see—content aimed at yuppies, especially those working in tech and tech-adjacent industries, young, high-energy actors being backed up by some familiar faces, a similar sort of bittersweet brand of humour. Even their corporate tie-up with Scaler is an old TVF move—watch their series Aspirants, which is sponsored by Unacademy and follows a group of UPSC candidates. B.E. Rojgaar is a timely and witty comedy with some well-executed set-pieces and plenty of heart, and by the end of the first season, I found myself wanting to spend more time with these characters. Aditya Mani Jha is a Delhi-based independent writer and journalist, currently working on a book of essays on Indian comics and graphic novels. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.