ALMA MATTERS-INSIDE THE IIT DREAMS- External Appearances are often deceptive.

By Janhavi Pathak

ALMA MATTERS-INSIDE THE IIT DREAMS is Netflix’s new docuseries of 3 episodes , based on the life of students at IIT kharagpur, India’s first institute of IITs . It answers tough questions , drops truth bombs you need to know whether a student or parent .It gives you a reality check between dream and reality.

IIT Kharagpur is internally filled with self-doubt, mental challenges, and pressure that students face inside the campus. The series shows the life of student , what is it to be a IITian and what’s life after getting out of IIT. It has an instance of a student who shared this experience about how his expectation from IIT was met with disappointment the first day.

People are in a delusional reality where they think if you want a successful life then IIT is the gateway. We see students saying that IIt engineering has lost its passion and has just become the road to success .

There are also cases of students coming from different backgrounds, aspirations  , and cultures coming here. There’s the son of a shopkeeper who talks about his father’s desire to see his children enter “the officer class, wearing a suit”. There’s the young woman who rolls her eyes at her classmates’ sexist comments (“a girl who’s into coding?”). Then there is the hilariously over-the-top sexism on campus when a female student – only one to contest and win the sports general secretary elections – talks about the harsh reality of gender discrimination in one of the premium Indian institutes. The series shows the whole process of placement in detail and how it affects the students. In the episode around the institute’s nervy placement process, which is the cause for sleepless nights for many students, it passionately argues that a person is much more than a CTC package they might be offered. However, it only highlights many students nervously rambling about the placement as the be-all and end-all of the entire IIT experience. Some of them survive the process and some of them don’t and end up taking drastic steps.

The series also shows renowned comedian Biswa Kalyan Rath, who is an IIT Kharagpur alumnus. Biswa has delivered several pieces of comedy about his time at IIT and also what constitutes a typical engineer.

This is a kind of documentary we need as student or even if not a student to see the reality behind the renowned institution. Alma Matters is an interesting watch in itself, but one can’t ignore the dark side and reality behind it .

Alma Matters: Inside the IIT Dream, which is a three-part series, is streaming on Netflix from May 14.