Varun Grover on making ‘All India Rank’ about IIT entrance: The story & emotion are very much from my life

It is a basic maxim of writing that one should write what one knows. I believe that films, especially a first film, should be very personal. I am not a full-time director and not even wanting to be a full-time director. I want to be a full-time writer and direct some stories which are really close to my heart. I write scripts for other directors, but this was one script which has been with me for a long time. I did write the IIT-JEE exam, cleared it and went to an IIT. Even then, when I should have been very happy about my success, and through the college years, I kept questioning why have I come here and how I was subtly brainwashed into believing and desiring this life, which is not what I really wanted to be. I wanted to be a writer. During the whole year of preparation, I felt I was killing some part of me to be an engineer. Then I started thinking about that subtle brainwash that so many kids of my generation in the ’90s experienced.

The story and emotion of the story is very much from my life. The events are collected from people I know. My father is not like the father in this film, but a very close friend’s father was exactly like this. I closely knew one kid in my coaching class who was preparing for three years and before his last attempt, he felt so panicked that he tried to take an extreme step. These events stayed with me. I was also thinking about how the coaching industry, the world and success have changed over the last 20 years. So many kids take this pressure of being successful at such a young age. I wanted to tell that story through the times and places I knew – Lucknow and Kota.

Multiple things were challenging. Topmost was to actually go out and deal with people. Being a writer, I'm always the person who is just writing and sending, not even meeting a lot of people. Going out and meeting people and suddenly realizing that I am the director and I have to take care of everything was very stressful. For a person who is generally very happy being alone and socially awkward, dealing with various creative energies and egos, and aligning them into one was challenging.

Secondly, in my whole unit, I think, I was the oldest. A lot of them had not seen the '90s. The actors were born in 2000 or after. So they did not know the era we were talking about. To bring everyone into the era that we were recreating, we watched lots of films from that time, saw pictures and shared family albums to see how people dressed and looked in the 1990s.

The next challenge was to make the film the way we did – without any known faces. The producers were very helpful and supported this casting choice because I really wanted people to believe these are not actors but characters who are people in the film. To convince myself and then to convince my producers and then to deal with the outcome of that during the marketing of the film was another challenge. How do you convince people that an indie film can be fun, music-filled with a little comedy, a little drama, middle of the road, like a Sai Paranjpye film.

If you were to give 16-year-old Varun advice today, what would you tell him?

I would probably tell him not to take too much stress. At 17, the feeling I had was that this is the make-or-break year. It’s a feeling a lot of kids have between the ages of 15 and 17, when you are constantly told that this is the last time to study and if you don’t do well, then life will be very difficult, etc. I got that advice from a lot of people and that made me a very jumpy person, forever anxious. I am still anxious. I wish I could go back and tell the 17-year-old me that nothing is really important. Just take it easy. You will find a way, because life is huge and multi-layered.

There are so many people who struggle even after going to the top schools. It’s more about how you live your life, the choices you make and the people you surround yourself with. Of course, luck is involved too. I wish I could avoid that stress, which, in my case, came more from the people around me and not so much from my own parents. The general idea of what success means in society clearly affected me.

There have been a number of films about IIT and IIM. In 'All India Rank', you have built in pressure from the parents, their unrealized dreams and ambitions projected onto their children and associated guilt.

Yes. This is one of the key themes of the film, apart from coming of age, apart from the '90's time capsule, etc. It is most unfortunate that kids at 16 or 17 – an age when we are not allowed to vote, not allowed to marry, not allowed to drink, because the government thinks we are too immature to handle these things – are asked to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives. And if you fail at 16, you are constantly labelled a failure and a loser. That can be distressing.

I went to Kota to research for the film also. Though the film was set 25 years ago, we thought let's see what's happening today. We did not see one happy teenager. They all look burdened with existentialism. And this is just one town. Those kids who are not studying for IIT or medical, are studying for something else. It’s all about this feeling, which society has emphasised to 16-year-olds, that this is the crucial year. This is something I wanted to talk about.

Was ‘All India Rank’ cathartic for you?

Very cathartic. I'm still looking for closure from that time in my life. Apart from whatever other reactions the film gets, I'm hoping to get that kind of reaction from people of my generation – that we went through this and now we kind of see more clearly what happened in those times. A lot of people from my generation and generations after me, who have been to IIT coaching in the last 20 years, will relate to that aspect that the stress is not really worth it. That is the closure I'm looking for too.

Today success is being peddled in such a glamorous way, thanks to social media in particular and the influencer culture. How do you now look at success at this stage in your career?

Today people are chasing success and not happiness or excellence. In most cases, they are chasing the shortest way to success. A fast return, short-term strategy is not viable. For me, success means being able to do stuff I love, at my leisure. I don’t get paid, no worries. As long as I know how to adjust my monthly budget, according to whatever projects I'm doing, I'm happy. Reduce your monthly EMIs and you'll be a freer person and happier person. If I want to stay at home for two months and just read or just watch movies or play with my cats, I'm happy. That's success for me. Not that I have four films releasing in this year and I have a Netflix special coming or something. So being successful is actually about making life choices without worrying about the financial implications and not being in a hurry.

All India Rank poster (Image source: X / @JoyBhattacharj)

In other IIT/IIM films, from ‘Chhichhore’ to ‘12th Fail’ and ‘Three Idiots’, including ‘All India Rank’, the girl’s character is either a distraction, a motivator or competition. Why is their struggle never developed?

Absolutely, and that is one area I feel very unhappy about. I feel the film is lacking in the characterization of Sarika, played by Samta Sudiksha. Coming from my own memories of those times, I knew someone who was so deeply interested in physics that she actually said, even if I don’t get into IIT it's fine as long as I get to study physics. There was another slightly political thing I wanted to put. Both Sheeba Chaddha's character, the physics teacher, and Sarika are shown to be in love with physics. When we went to Kota, and over the last 25 years, there have been probably 30 or 40 top physics teachers in Kota, but none of them are women. When you see the hoardings and boards around the city of Kota, they're all men because it's a science industry. Over the years, STEM has become a somewhat misogynistic world, because men somehow have captured the physics and maths world saying it is very gruelling and giving other stupid reasons. We wanted the top physics teacher to be female and I also wanted one student who totally loves science. Still, I know Sarika’s character is not fully fleshed out and could have been much better if the film had space, or if I tried harder. Hopefully, next time.

And what is next for you?

As of now, not much. I'm doing my stand-up comedy tour ‘Nothing Makes Sense’ which will be touring the UK and Europe in April. Then I’m writing the songs for Vasan Bala’s Jigra with Alia Bhatt in it. I'm working on a short animation film as a co-director with an animation director. It’s based on a short story I've written and we are hoping to finish it this year. But first a long rest after All India Rank releases.