Kota Factory & Possibility (Spoilers)

Life Lemon #12: You choose your possibility.

After bawling through the last episode of Kota Factory’s season 3, I am back with a renewed incentive for self-discovery.

A few weeks ago, when I was scratching my head and having a melt down over a math problem, a friend recommended Kota Factory to me. Owing to his good taste in media, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to see the pilot episode. Just 1 episode in I could see why he thought watching Vaibhav struggle through the cut-throat competition of the JEE rat-race would inspire me in my competitive exam journey.

Cut to the last episode of the series, it took me days to get over the heartbreak of Vaibhav not making it to IIT. Vaibhav’s loss felt personal to me - still does. Perhaps, without noticing, I had begun seeing myself in him and the other characters. But mostly him. The show ends on a bittersweet truth bomb, where he parts his ways with everyone who was on the same boat as him, including Jeetu, who taught him to not settle for less and made him believe he’s not alone in his journey. This time, Vaibhav ‘aims’ to try again, but on his own. We don’t know whether in the Kota universe he will ever find success, or he will eventually find it but not in an IIT campus.

To me, that’s what makes this show realistic. I’ve never given competitive exams before, but I know some friends who glided through them and some who took a U-turn for the better. While there are many ways to perfect this gut-wrenching and ambiguous ending, I like to believe it’s the mirror we hate to see, but must learn to look at without flinching.

At first, I had a strong urge to believe that Vaibhav’s truth is the sole truth of hard work and outcomes. That no matter how hard you try, you cannot control the outcome. Your 100% can never match up to someone else’s. The statistical probability of getting to your destination will always overshadow the possibility of it. And should you ever overcome it, it will be a mere stroke of luck and not a product of your labor.

Not until yesterday, when I read something about how possibilities dictate our actions, I became mentally ready to acknowledge that my relationship with hard work is conditional. Many times in life, I have been too insecure to admit what I want. Like most of us, the slim numbers of statistical success tempt me to stay inside my comfort zone and not go through the jarring realisation of my limitations. I’ve had a strong urge to turn away from the pain of my inadequacy. Albeit temporal, it sucks to be reminded how you’re not good enough, on your way to achieving something.

I’ve milked every bit of Jeetu Bhaiya’s pep talks to keep me going on days, but in the end, where he too is gone without words of comfort, I was left alone in Vaibhav’s mind. He’s the Vernali that doesn’t commit suicide. He’s the reality of many students whose 100% doesn’t measure up to the standards of an exam. He’s a repeater who knows he’s been licked and is too stubborn to forget about his dreams. Perhaps he’s the Jeetu who couldn’t easily detach from his dreams because unlike Jeetu, he never got to be on top and outgrow it.

To me, Kota Factory is not a story about getting to your goal. It’s a story about being stubborn and trying to stretch your arm out to your idea of possibility. Regardless of what someone else feels your range of growth is; even yourself.

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Recent Reads:

• Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro: I like how character driven the stories in this book are. While I am not able to fully commit to its pace, it’s still been a worthy enough read on days I just want to get some reading done.

Words stuck in my head:

Spotify Favourites:

Until next lime 🍋,

K from A Life Full Of Lemons.