Up in Arms

In Garmi, director Tigmanshu Dhulia offers an unflinching look at the lures and perils of university student politics

- Aditya Mani Jha

Twenty years ago, director Tigmanshu Dhulia gave us Haasil, starring Irrfan Khan and Jimmy Shergill, an angry, eccentric, darkly funny cautionary tale set against the backdrop of campus politics at Allahabad University. Khan’s performance is today considered something of a breakout for the late actor, while Haasil ranks among Bollywood’s finest explorations of the subject. Two decades later, Dhulia returns to Uttar Pradesh and angry young men in campus politics, thanks to SonyLiv’s recently released web-series Garmi, a fast-paced, actionpacked drama that sees the director in top form.

The setting is the fictional university at ‘Trivenipur’ (an obvious stand-in for Allahabad— ‘triveni’ refers to the historical convergence of three rivers at Allahabad). The show’s designated angry young man, Arvind Shukla (Vyom Yadav from Badhai Do