‘Alma Matters: Inside the IIT Dream’ review: Netflix documentary engages, but lacks an outsider’s perspective

The three-part series on life inside the hallowed halls of India’s premier educational institution fails to probe into the true nature of the students’ experience

“Anything can be done provided enough work has been put into it. That is how a majority of people crack JEE,” pontificates Gokul Krishnan, a student from IIT Kharagpur’s mechanical engineering department. As he tries to hide his wry smile, he continues, “Then after they come here, they find freedom at last after years of leading a prisoner-like existence. How will they study? Why will they study?” Netflix’s three-part documentary Alma Matters doesn’t try to answer Gokul’s enquiries. Instead, it uses his comments as a road map to navigate its way around the highly competitive academic landscape that engulfs IIT Kharagpur’s sprawling campus; a world within a world.