Shiksha Mandal Review: A fresh depiction of social evils in the education system that will keep you interested and captivated till the climax
Shiksha Mandal Rating: 3 Stars
Finally watched Shiksha Mandal on MX Player. Let’s analyze the cast, release date, story, positive/negatives and at last my personal view on this web series.
Cast: Gauahar Khan, Gulshan Devaiah, Pavan Raj Malhotra, Iram Badar Khan, Shivaani Singh, Kumar Saurabh and Anamika Shukla
Director: Syed Ahmad Afzal
Release Date: 15th September (MX Player)
Duration: 9 Episodes/ 40 Minutes
Story: Set in Bhopal, story inspired by true events involving one of the biggest medical entrance exam scams in India. Like recent films and shows, such as Halahal (2020), The Whistleblower (2021), and Crash Course (2022) were fictitious recreations of a real-life scam unearthed in Madhya Pradesh in 2013. It sheds light on how the education mafias got many children admitted by making fake candidates take the medical entrance exam. The narrative is multi-layered, showing corruption, fraud, cheating, and criminal conspiracy that affects vulnerable students in India.
Series story is set in the cities of Madhya Pradesh, particularly Bhopal and Indore where the pressure on the youth to clear medical entrance tests and compete with one another is probably far more than what students face in urban cities. The series opens up with a guy named Prabhakar appearing for someone else’s exam and managing to run after he is caught for the same.
Scams are run by an unscrupulous coaching class owner in cahoots with gangster and tabela-owner Dhansu Yadav (Pavan Raj Malhotra). He has senior cops, bureaucrats and politicians on his payroll. The gangsters organize everything, from proxies to write exams, bribing, kidnapping and blackmail to make brilliant students appear in place of the dunces, to leaking papers, and for a big enough fee, sneak exam sheets out and get them replaced with corrected papers.
The plot then switches to the coaching center where Aditya (Gulshan Devaiah) motivates his students as their results are approaching. His sister Vidya Rai (Iram Badar Khan) is the topper at his institute. Despite this, she is pretty anxious about her entrance test result. It is later revealed that she became a victim of this educational scam and appeared for someone else’s exam instead of her own. On the announcement day, Vidya trying to commit suicide, but she gets kidnapped by a goon instead and her friend Rahul Somani (Gaurav Singh) who is the son of a prominent politician is murdered.
Aditya and his over-eager journalist girlfriend Shivani (Shivaani Singh) are pulled into the mess as they got to that his sister Vidya is forced into appearing as a proxy and then kidnapped because she has a pen drive that could implicate some bigwigs. This high-profile murder case is quickly transferred to the STF (Special Task Force), led by the tough and courageous police officer Anuradha Singh (Gauahar Khan). Soon enough, she realizes that this is much more complicated than a simple murder or kidnapping investigation. Will Aditya find his sister? Will Anuradha be able to solve the complicated case? What more mysteries will unfold? You will find the answer after watching this series.
Positives
1. Excellent Performances
2. Climax
3. Direction
4. Story
Negatives
1. Unnecessary Subplots
2. Length
3. Screenplay
Durgesh Tiwary’s View: When I watched the trailer planned to watch this series in my free time because loved the trailer and based on true incidents.
Set in Bhopal, Story inspired by true events involving one of the biggest medical entrance exam scams in India. Aditya Rai discovers that his sister Vidya Rai was absent from her medical entrance test, while parallelly the STF is asked to take over an investigation seeking to make sense of the multiple odd crimes occurring in the city. SP Anuradha Singh Srivastav finds herself in charge of a case involving blackmail, kidnapping and murder of students across Bhopal & Indore involving some of the most powerful people.
While watching the series, the first few episodes felt disjointed due to a lack of consistency in the screenplay. We must say that the series has all the significant content to make a worthwhile storyline, but the writers needed to work more on the narrative. The right content in the wrong proportion is the only problem with the series, as the number of unnecessary subplots just makes it more complex and difficult to grasp. For example, small subplots like Aditya’s love story with Shivaani and Anuradha’s divorce from Sumeet add no value and were not required. Also, when you watch the series, you will feel the need to press the forward button and skip needless dramas like Aditya’s heroic act beyond his understanding, Dhansu Yadav’s bragging about his dream university, etc.
After reaching the middle part, the series finally picks up increasing high voltage drama in the storyline. Finally, around halfway through, the show picks up momentum, heightening the drama in the plot. After all of this buildup, the series concludes on a cliff-hanger, leaving room for the next season. What does pass with distinction are the performances of the cast. Overall, series is a fresh depiction of social evils in the education system. The decent storyline is attention-worthy and makes it a must-watch. It only lacks one thing, the execution. which could have been a little better. Several sub-plots add complexities that may test your patience. But the curiosity created by suspense and the strong performances of the entire cast pay off positively. It will keep you interested and captivated till the climax.
My view on this series Recommended.
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