Yaar Jigree Kasooti Degree: All about friendly vibes

Gurnaaz Kaur

Like friends is for English viewers, Yaar Jigree Kasooti Degree is for the Punjabi audience,” says Rabby Tiwana, director of the first-ever Punjabi series, which is all set to enter its second season on September 30. The show was launched on September 15, 2018, on Troll Punjabi YouTube channel

“Two years back, we were all fresh out of college and still learning the trade. Now, we have some experience in the field and that will be visible in the second season. The equipment has been upgraded. Back then we shot on a basic camera, now there is professional one; lighting is stronger too. Content, however, is the same. We are carrying forward the same story.”

Based on the life of college students, the series stars Pukhraj Bhalla, Karan Sandhawalia, Sukhdeep Sapra, Amrit Amby, Jasmin Bajwa, Pawan Johal, Prateek Singh Raji and Karanvir Deol.

Learning curve

The last season concluded in December 2018, but the show has been garnering more and more views till date. The first episode has 2.8 crore views today! “We continuously got requests for the second season and that motivated us. In this season, you will see college politics and some new characters. The last episode of the previous season was a cliffhanger. It ended on a chaotic note when all the friends drifted apart. Whether they will come together in this one, you have to watch it for that.”

Direction, writing, editing — Rabby does it all. His friends are part of the cast and crew, which helps in better co-ordination. “I had this idea since my college days. I developed it while pursuing a filmmaking course at Punjabi University. I would often discuss it with my friends and we were sure of filming it someday. All of us made the pilot episode as a dummy project, which had to be submitted in the final year. We are still learning and not focusing on money. Whatever we get from YouTube, we invest some of it on the show and the rest we divide among ourselves. Money is not the focus right now. The idea is to deliver a top-class show that people will remember.”

Second take

The second season has 13 episodes of 30 minutes each. Unlike the last season, the team plans to stream two episodes a week. While half of the show was shot before Covid-19, completing the remaining bit wasn’t easy. “We had to create a college environment and to do that with all the social distancing was difficult. We finally finished it last month, after getting all the necessary permissions.”

Popularity of the show obviously led to offers from various platforms, but Rabby declined them all. “For Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, we would have had to create the show all over again because they have set rules for the technology being used. Other offers we got from Indian OTT platforms, but to accept them we would have had to delete the show from YouTube.”

Rabby thinks there is time for everything and right now, it is his time to write some more, “I have a lot of ideas. I did get offers, but I was concentrating on YJKD because writing takes away months. I have movies in mind too, but there are a lot of conditions by the producers. I do not want to compromise my content. I will do a movie for the OTT platform, but not a typical Punjabi film.”

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