It is said that the debut work of a creative mind is its most heartfelt. Varun Grover’s All India Rank (AIR) is no exception. After gaining recognition as a lyricist and writer in the Hindi film industry, Varun has now stepped behind the lens with the dramedy that follows a young boy as he preps at a coaching institute for the IIT exams.
All India Rank (AIR) is not the first film, and certainly not the last, to be made on the struggles of preparing for the highly competitive exams, but Varun gives it a fresh take. He doesn’t tell it as a story of success achieved despite the odds, but one of not seeking success at all. And, he himself turned muse for it—he passed out from IIT (BHU) Varanasi in 2003.
“Even though I succeeded, I wasn’t happy about the future. That feeling stayed with me, and I kept thinking that it is a story. I should tell at some point,” says Varun, who completed the first draft of the film in 2014.
He adds, “It is only after I wrote Sacred Games, and was able to watch directors Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap at work, that I felt confident to make it.” The film was shot in 2022, and did the rounds of a few film festivals before its release in India on February 23.
Announcing the film’s shoot on his Instagram account, Varun had captioned it with the line “stolen moments of friendships in a world of competition”. AIR, he says, is from the point of view of the students and how they are dealing with so many things at the young age of 16 or 17. “This is a time when you are making friends and trying to understand yourself. However, society expects you to be sorted. At an age when drinking, driving and voting are not allowed in India, one is expected to decide the rest of their life and commit to it. Friendship is a big part of it. Good friends end up saving you on many levels and that was something I wanted to focus on,” he states.
On comparisons to Vidhu Vinod Sharma’s critically-acclaimed 12th Fail, which is about a man’s struggle with poverty to become an IPS officer, Varun shares that while he liked the film, his story, approach and intent are different. “That film is about a person’s struggle against the system and his desire to be successful while mine is about a kid who doesn’t want to be successful. He is actually questioning constantly why he’s been sent away from home at this young age to decide the rest of his life,” he says. One of the key areas that the film delves into, says Grover, is understanding the post-liberalisation scenario in India, which gave rise to the coaching industry. It is not a heavy film though. “There is comedy, satire and gentle moments that I hope will bring a smile to the audience’s face.
I wanted to make a light-hearted film with a serious heart,” he says.Varun, whose interest in writing short stories and poetry was a result of a literature-loving father and a house full of books, shifted to Mumbai after a one-year stint as a civil engineer in Pune. A visit to the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and a chance meeting with a student there led him to write the dialogues for her diploma film, titled Sanshodhan. In Mumbai, Varun continued working on small projects and ghost writing until The Great Indian Comedy Show, which brought him into the limelight, paving way for bigger projects such as Gangs of Wasseypur, Bombay Velvet, Udta Punjab, Badhaai Do, Monica O My Darling, Qala and Merry Christmas as a lyricist; and Masaan, Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar and Sacred Games among others as a writer.
Even as he is soaking in all the appreciation for his debut, Varun is also preparing to write the songs for Vasan Bala’s Jigra starring Alia Bhatt. But before that, he has a two-month long snoozefest on the calendar.