Whether it’s 3 Idiots, Student of the Year or Gulaal, Bollywood movies don’t always have the most accurate depiction of student life. This gap is what Hostel Daze aims to fill. It centers around Ankit (Adarsh Gourav), Jhanntoo (Nikhil Vijay), Jaat (Shubham Gaur) and Chirag (LUV) and the escapades of their first semester at an engineering college.
All of them fit into convenient tropes: Chirag is a chubby brainiac, Jhantoo is a drug dealer who took 4 years to clear his entrance exams, Jaat is a simple minded villager whose father made a donation and Ankit, the protagonist, is just… average. Gaur and Vijay were brilliant performers, bearing the comedic brunt of the show, but unfortunately none of their characters were explored beyond these shallow tropes (especially Gaur’s, which would’ve made the show so much better). This show definitely gets full marks for painting an authentic picture of what the Indian college experience is but is ridden with issues.
Firstly, although ragging is apparently an “integral” college experience, can Bollywood please stop glorifying it? The ragging in this show has strongly toxic masculine and homophobic undertones. There’s one scene in particular, where the boys of the hostel catfish Ankit and laugh at him being mushy that really encourages toxic masculinity. But it’s completely brushed off and portrayed as “simple hostel fun.” Accompanying all these assertions with upbeat music doesn’t make them any less disturbing.
Instead, it just encourages a “boys will be boys” mentality, which is the last thing young and impressionable audiences need. Also, most of the jokes just weren’t that funny. When will writers realize that adding a Hindi gaali in every sentence doesn’t automatically mean that it’s good comedy. This show is generally quite lackluster, with very few memorable moments other than the great performances. So watch it if you want a light and frothy comedy that reminds you of the ‘good old days.’ But definitely don’t think too hard while watching it, because the cracks will be apparent from miles away
