13th Some Lessons Aren’t Taught In Classrooms Review: Gagan Dev Riar and Paresh Pahuja power this extraordinary coming of age

13th Some Lessons Aren’t Taught In Classrooms Review: Gagan Dev Riar and Paresh Pahuja power this extraordinary coming of age

‘13th Some Lessons Aren’t Taught In Classrooms’ – the five episodes SonyLiv series sees Gagan Dev Riar and Paresh Pahuja instill life and lessons in this extraordinary coming of age that pulls its audience by their heartstrings.

‘13th Some Lessons Aren’t Taught In Classrooms’, directed by Nishil Seth and created and written by Sameer Mishra, is inspired by the life and philosophy of Mohit Tyagi, alias MT Sir, a visionary Maths teacher and founder of an Ed-Tech start up known as Competishun.

With a potent material that would echo the struggle of any JEE aspirant or an individual who has gone through the rigor of preparations for any competitive exams, ‘13th Some Lessons Aren’t Taught In Classrooms’ finds its heart and heft in the intimate dynamics between a mentor and his protégé who re-unite after a hiatus and at a delicate point in life where they need a synergy to combat a challenge that life has posed onto them – to uphold their values, ethics and dignity, and propel their vision in the cutthroat world of many pretentious outfits.

With so many of them protruding out their ugly heads and selling false hopes, frustration is inevitable, and it manifests in Ritesh (Paresh Pahuja), a professional working in a well-established venture capitalist firm who gives up everything and goes back to basics – joining hands with his mentor (played by Gagan Dev Riar).

‘13th Some Lessons Aren’t Taught In Classrooms’ dabbles in the exploratory and profound themes of ambitions, gratitude and unbreakable bonds but the beauty of this drama lies in its brilliant writing and storytelling which effectively amalgamates the past and the present.

Ritesh’s past years as an IIT aspirant in Kota and being mentored under MT Sir smartly intercuts with the present where the struggle resonates with their combined quest for an investor for Competishun. Their ideas, viewpoint, philosophy, and apprehensions clash with each other and depicts a realistic dimension in relationships between two individuals divided by a generation.

Gagan Dev is an immensely fine actor, and he approaches MT with a calculated finesse. The beats and rhythms of the real-life educator is in stark contrasts to what he played in Scam 2003 (The Telgi Story, again a real character), but the actor gets into the abyss of the characters’ psychology. On the other hand, Pahuja portrays the hope, despair, and frustration of Ritesh with a razor-sharp authencity – He is wise, impulsive, has a bad temper and etches the genius in his character effectively. I was completely sold to the parts which show the development of humility in his character and shows him embracing his competitor in the class.

 

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