There’s Bagga who tries so hard to be Rahul, you realise deeper meanings to the dialogue: Tum nahi samjhoge… There’s the friends gang Karan, Naira, Deepika and yes Dhatpriya (DP) like a wannabe Dil Chahta Hai. Naira even is out there in the US. And back to Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (KKHH), there’s the new girl Raavi (Jahnavi Rawat) except she’s Bagga’s sister.
Alas there’s no Principal Malhotra, no Ms Braganza, not even the loving Rifat B. This college life has no assignments to finish, no college spirit, but yes, there’s a College Pride Club. Don’t ask how they got permission to start this club at college because there are no adults except two goons who are sometimes Harry’s friends (he brings them to the housewarming party), and sometimes Bagga’s friends (Bagga rides with them to college).
Everyone seems to be flush with money: Bagga drives a car but they need a third roomie or they’d not be able to afford the rent for an apartment in a housing society which has a pool, Naira comes back from the US dropping some unidentified education program, Harry has a fancy DSLR…
Gen Z in reality is more cautious about boundaries; if people are fighting in the college canteen, they may not even look up from their phone screens. In this show, everyone stops to see Deepika and Raavi have an argument, they even chant ‘lesbo, lesbo’ because they receive a video showing the two girls kissing. This is so last century!
Today’s generation is talking about pronouns that they use and they have seen Badhai Do (which was set in a small town). Discovering two women kissing should not turn an entire college into Mrs Acharya (Kirron Kher) from Dostana, no? The idea that ‘gay people are fine but not my sister’ is an interesting idea, but the season just gets over without giving us a solution. Would I care to watch the next season? Naah.
Look, I’m not saying College Romance 3 was a terrible show. Movies like BA Pass are terrible. This show was tiresome. And that is a bigger crime. There was nothing in the show which deserves Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Cool’ necklace.
Harry coming on to Deepika, Dhatpriya’s shyness around Karan, Bagga’s and Naira’s embarrassment at discovering what the Russian/American massage gal/guy meant by a ‘Happy Ending’, the queue of bizarre roomies, and even the big roofie incident are predictable incidents that make Fukrey into a masterpiece. Fukrey is about lads who don’t want to study but want to get rich, study in that fancy college and so on. At least the Fukrey lads had a talent that made the implausible things in the movie funny. This show is trite, trite and even more trite.
Yes, a couple of lines are so funny, you are shaken from the predictability-induced stupor. When Bagga tries to get away from Karan who’s following him, asking uncomfortable questions about a hickey (sorry folks, that’s even more a '70s thing!), Bagga says, ‘Do you like the smell of my bum?’ When Karan says, ‘No, why?’ Bagga replies, ‘Phir usme kyon ghusa jaa raha hai?’ (then why are you getting so close to my arse)... But it doesn’t end there. When Harry gets real close to Karan, he repeats the same insult. That was funny.
Another funny line just casually strolls by. Karan asks Bagga why he rejected so many people who wanted to be roommates. Bagga says about one, ‘Woh toh andhere mein bhi dikhega.’ (about a guy who wears neon clothing).
The whole show seems to revolve around college canteens and partying. We never really get to know what these people are studying. If you have not watched the first two seasons of the show (and nothing in this show is interesting enough to make you want to scroll back and watch the earlier seasons), you won’t know why they are the way they are, and unfortunately, nothing will make you want to invest this kind of time and energy into wanting to be their friend. At least in movies like Grease, Clueless and even Student Of The Year, you get to know the students enough to want to be like them. Not these college kids.
The fight scene too is not original. Several films have used old Bollywood romance numbers when a fight is taking place (Shaitan has ‘Khoya Khoya Chand’, and Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota has ‘Nakhrewali’ to name a couple). To hear ‘Bahon Mein Chale Aao’ right before the canteen fight just seems out of place. Plus, where are the college kids who would be videotaping the fight?
I am not an ageist, but these actors don’t look like college kids any more. The show, its concerns and the way the characters behave is more like watching college movies of yesteryears where grown up Jeetendra and company would want to pass off as college kids… As the characters in the show say, ‘Feeling hee nahi aaya!’ Thankfully it’s five episodes only. So to paraphrase Col. Jessop from A Few Good Men, ‘I’ve suffered it so you won’t have to.’
College Romance 3 released on SonyLIV on September 16, 2022.
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