The Viral Fever (TVF) has partnered with Netflix for their upcoming education based show Hello Bachhon. The series gives a message that education, especially higher education, should be a right of every child and should not be limited to the rich. The show stars Viineet Kumar Siingh in the lead and it starts streaming from March 6. In an exclusive interview with Bollywood Hungama, TVF’s founder Arunabh Kumar got talking about Hello Bachhon, their strategy and more.
TVF has consistently captured youth culture with authenticity. What emotional core drove Hello Bachhon?
So, I think when it comes to young adult stories, when you look at the library in India, there’s a lot of stories being told in crime, a lot of this across the genre. But when it comes to this age group of telling stories of, let’s say, 13-year-olds to 20-year-olds, we have had a few of them, some of them we have been fortunate to be part of. But I think coming of age, growing up during adolescence, the kind of emotional complexities that one comes across, the kind of ambitions that one is burdened with, whether it is from the parents, whether it is from their teachers, whether it is themselves sometimes, and I think that has always been a recurring theme. And this story actually combines all of them together with the true story of a teacher who made this possible for so many of them.
I think the backgrounds of students whose story we have dealt with in Hello Bachhon is going to completely surprise and astound people that, okay, there are such people too. One of the things that, in fact, we were told that we always speak of middle India. We do not look at India 3 or Bharat, while we have dealt with them in many stories and shows now, whether it is a show on a village that we have done, or whether it is a show based in Delhi.
But I think this time you will see that we have got a chance, thanks to Alakh’s journey, thanks to PW’s journey, we got a chance to dip into the stories of these students from such diverse, such, sometimes, strikingly underprivileged background, sometimes such part of victim of such, I will say, societal norms that, and then they have been able to come out. And these stories are based on actual anecdotes of people who have learned from PW and Alakh. And they have changed their lives. So I think that is what appealed to us. And yeah, I think that something like this, I don’t think together we have ever told that. And we do not hope this story only touches the emotional core of young Indians in India, but across the globe.
Is this show closer to satire, slice of life, realism or aspirational coming of age storytelling?
Of course, it is not satire, I think. But I wouldn’t say it fits completely in either of the brackets. I think it’s a very highly emotional account of, like it’s there in the teaser, inspired by many, many million stories of. So aspiration is a part of it for sure. But I think it’s very deeply emotional. It’s very conflict heavy. It speaks of real India. Like I said, it’s inspired from true stories of teachers and students. So and they’ve gone through so much in their life. So aspiration can be called as well. But I would not like to bracket the much more broader and much. It deals with a lot more emotional aspects of one’s life and what one goes through while trying to chase their dream. So I would like to take it there.
How has your understanding of youth evolved since your early TVF days?
So, I think I’ll humbly accept that I understand them a little less now maybe because I’m not as young as I used to be when we started 14 years back when I could totally get a lingo, the joke and everything. But I think the reason that some of us founding team members, whether it is me or Vijay and Sherry, who have worked on the show and who also used to say that is this going to be another show that we have done so many times? And Vijay and Sherry said, no, this is very, very different because the kind of realities that younger Indians live in today is very, very different from what we were living in.
So I think humbly I accept that, yes, things would have changed in the last 10-14 years and things have changed. But like I always say that emotions do not change. Aspirations, the modality of aspirations changes, but I think aspirations are still there. Dreams are still there. In the history time, people used to dream of conquering a country. Now they dream of conquering a World Cup or in the world of business. So we try to sort of attribute any story to that axis and identify those parts. And at the same time, we have a very young team who is always there at TVF and Netflix also has a lot of younger people and they keep us, giving us their current North Star to follow.
I would say there was a very random study that Gen Zs have less IQ than Millennials. I do not really subscribe to that because maybe this test has been done by the question paper, which was prepared by a Millennial and that is no longer valid. So I feel it is important to accept that time always changes. That’s the rule of law of nature, law of capitalism, law of technology. And we try and be with the times. We try and identify the emotions because they always are there.
And if you are able to anchor your stories, your characters around that, then rest everything can be figured with research. And that’s how we have kind of been viral in 2012, as well as viral in 2026. And thanks to the team, specifically the younger people, Abhishek Yadav, who has written, Pratish, who has directed, Sherry, who’s our head of originals and Vijay. By the way, I’ll tell you Vijay is the oldest man by age, but the youngest when it comes to energy.
Were you consciously trying to avoid tropes that typically define school or college narratives in Indian cinema?
No, I don’t think we are consciously trying to avoid. I think we are just trying to be authentic and true to what we have seen and what we hear of. There is like, everybody says, there are many India’s in our country. There are people of all economic backgrounds walking on the road or driving on the road. So we just try to pick a segment and try to be honest to them. And whether it is Kota Factory or whether it is Hello Bachhon. If you see Hello Bachcho, you will be surprised of the kind of, you know, I was myself very astounded. So to say the least, with some of the stories that people have made, despite what background they come from.
So we’re just trying to be honest. I think we’re just trying to be very diverse and honest. And once you try and research about other segments, other towns, other backgrounds, then automatically you come across newer material, newer research. And that that gives you new writing, new stories, and they become different from whatever maybe a certain segment has done so far.
With Hello Bachhon, we have actually ourselves felt that we have never really told stories of people from this background. And that that makes us very proud to be associated with the show that makes us creatively very exciting, excited that we are telling this. And with Netflix, you know, they supported us to try and tell the story in the best possible way. And I think we have a story which after watching, you will again say that maybe we have tried to be consciously away from the tropes of even TVF’s lens of storytelling.
The post EXCLUSIVE: TVF’s Arunabh Kumar states, “Background of students portrayed in Hello Bachhon is going to completely surprise and astound people” appeared first on Bollywood Hungama.
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