3 Idiots: After-thoughts

Saari umra hum mar mar ke jee liye
ek pal to ab hamein jeene do jeene do

I heard a lot about it by my non-TJY friends while I was on the yatra. I also listened to and loved the ‘give me some sunshine’ being played on the PA system almost everyday while on the yatra! The euphoria which it created made me finally watch it. Yes, finally, saw ‘3 Idiots’ today. [I wish we had a way to make ‘3’ capital to indicate that ‘3 idiots’ is a proper noun and avoid confusion, if any]. But that was not the first thing which made me curious about the movie. Apart from Aamir Khan, despite his short-term-sanity-loss in Ghajini, the innovative way of promoting the movie drew me towards the 3 Idiots.

Sticking ‘Capacity: 3 Idiots’ behind autos was pretty innovative. It’s better than ‘Sanam Bewafa’ written on the auto's black backs with a heart pierced by an arrow. In addition to promoting the movie, it also had a safety message. People who have traveled in shared-autos in HiTec City, Hyderabad would know risky it is, in more than one way, to travel in an autorickshaws with 9 other people! Also, meeting the local people (instead of going to the high profile parties) was also unique. Given the theme of the movie and the fact that the movie viewers are common people who look up to such ‘starts’, it made sense to promote the movie that way. I think this is the first time such marketing techniques which involve common people was use. However, conventional way of marketing - creating alternate reality game, merchandising, etc - was also used.

‘3 Idiots’ is a good commercial movie. Generally, ‘good’ and ‘commercial movie’ don’t go together and are considered antonyms in some purists' dictionary.

The theme of 3 Idiots is not only fresh but also very relevant. Somehow, there is this obsession in India to go for engineering (and, perhaps, then MBA). Every parent wants his child to be either an engineer or a doctor. The most ‘logical’ think for a student to do if he’s getting good academic score consistently is to go for engineering or medical. A lot of other social issues were highlighted – parental pressure, teacher’s pressure and marks centric exam system (and education system, as a whole) which award the one who can cram the most. By hinting that the house of Raju (Sharman Joshi) was like that showed in a typical 1950’s film, Rajkumar Hirani showed that the evils of dowry still haunt India. Poor public healthcare facilities and inflation of food prices were also hinted upon in the form of comedy. Raising social problems with the help of humor is a rare art in Bollywood.

The music, the timing and the lyrics of the songs are amazing. Full marks to Swanand Kirkire for the poignant lyrics and Shantanu Moitra for the apt music. Aamir khan, Madhavan and Sharman Joshi did look like a college students. All the actors, including (surprisingly) Kareena Kapoor acted well. Scattering the use of science in daily life - like using the fact that salt water is a good conductor of electricity, etc – was very good which, I am sure, a lot of educational institutes will adopt. The story was well paced. The screenplay was very good. Moving the story back and forth in time added the element of curiosity to the movie as the audience continuously tries to join the dots. The climax of the film - Mona Singh's delivery - was like the final engineering exam! It covered a lot of concepts of engineering!

If Yash Raj were to move with time, back in 1990s, I would have projected them to make movies like ‘3 Idiots’. However, apart from the costumes, not much changed. 3 Idiots had all the basic elements of a Yash Raj movie and would perhaps bear the same criticism of critics that Yash Raj movies bear. 3 Idiots is a movie depicting an ‘ideal’ scenario and not a real one. 3 idiots ask people to follow their dreams. Great. Nothing wrong with it. But, from what I understand, the problem is that not many people know what their dreams are. Our dreams are limited by our environment and resources. A poor person who has to struggle to get his daily bread cannot dream of being a wild life photographer. Even, children form well-to-do backgrounds don’t know what career options are available. They are not exposed to a variety of things so that they can choose. All they are exposed to is Physics, Chemistry, Maths and the JEEs. In the movie, the protagonists knew their calling. This is an ideal scenario. This is similar to Raj Suri’s ideal love for Tani in Rab-ne, Veera’s passion for cricket in Dil-Bole and the love between Veer and Zaara. Ideal. Perfect. But not real. Changing of Boman Irani’s heart had shades of Mohabbatein. The ending also had Yash-Raj flavour to it. All the three 'heroes' are successful. Madhavan had wildlife photography books to his name, Sharman was successful, Aanir was super-successful, Boman Irani became a changed man (like Narayan Shankar of Mohabbatein) and most importantly, Aamir - Kareena got together. Like is Johar-YashRaj films, here also, the heroine gets to know of her hero on the day of her wedding with a worthless guy and elopes to go to her hero who fortunately is still not married!

The climax of the film was in someway like the 'Home Alone' movies. In 'Home Alone' the 'kid' uses available equipments in a very innovative way to save himself from the robbers. In 3 idiots also, Aamir uses various instruments like vacuum cleaner, camera blower, car batteries, inverters, web cam, etc to perform the delivery!

Overall, it's a paisa wasool movie. It would force you to think whether the work you are doing is what you really love. And, whether your wife and your girlfriend are the same!

Give me some sunshine give me some rain
Give me anther chance I want to grow up once again

PS: Just as I have not mentioned five point someone anywhere 'in' the review, the movie also had nothing to do with the book. The characters were picked up from there but the over-all plot and treatment was completely different.