What hits harder in Kota Factory as a failed JEE aspirant
For context, i was watching a reel on instagram of a scene from this particular show, and it hit hard. I am probably very late, but this sub is for posts like these..
Season 1: The show opens all colorful, that period of my life when i loved everything, accademics, had friends, support, trust on myself etc. etc., which students like me lose as soon as we decide that we wanna be a part of this rat race, the season ends with vaibhav leaving prodigy and joining maheshwari, the colors return, it's his thoughts that he will become more succesful in this journey, it is also a transition. I was able to notice this that the makers change the color scheme whenever the protagonist's viewpoint changes.
Season 2: When Vaibhav listens to the speech of maheshwari classes' director, the colors again fade away, he realises nothing is different and he has to go through the same hardships as before, invest even more of his time and that too without friends.
Season 3: This one is the closest to my heart and hits the hardest. The show starts with the friends discussing questions, comparing marks and progress with each other and moving on, which was hella relatable in the last 6 months of my jee journey , exactly when this season came out. The ending of vaibhav not being able to make it, whereas others do, did not hit that hard at that time, but after my jee adv results came out in june 2025, i realised , i was exactly same as him, crying, vulnerable, in the need for support. In the end vaibhav doesnt reach out to jeetu bhaiya, the person he loved the most during these 2 years, and thats exactly what i did, i didnt have the courage to respond to teachers, whom i used to contact every other day to solve my problems.
This is the only season where colors don't appear in the end, because vaibhav hasn't transitioned completely out of the jee mind trap, he wants to do it again, win and do what he always yearned to do. The scene when jeetu bhaiya's car and auto rickshaw part ways, we can see that though the car moves away on another road, the auto just moves in a loop back into the kota city depicting that it's an endless loop, vaibhav is stuck in. This is a pain, he has never felt before.
And as for me, i used to be the best student in my class, used to score the highest marks, lost many friends because they started thinking of me as a competition. My best friend with whom i had started this prep(we were at absolute same level and used to score exact same marks), also ghosted me, but he did crack the exam. Though i never went to kota, the show brings out my raw emotions and the last scene now makes me feel everything vaibhav felt , and i felt on 2nd june 2025.
PS: I scored 99.06 in jee mains, but only a 10k rank in jee adv, which is not enough to secure a good iit.
