All Izz Well

What's added to the fun is the filmmakers have taken all the Bollywood clichés and turned them around just as their 3 idiots would
Sonali Ghosh Sen Delhi

i d i-ot

Pronunciation: i-dē-ət
Function: noun
1 a person affected with extreme mental retardation
2 a foolish or stupid person  

Take a long, hard look at this definition. Write it down on a piece of paper. Repeat it 20 times till you have it memorised. Then take the piece of paper, tear it and throw it in the bin. And go watch 3 Idiots at a movie hall near you.

It's a movie that's turning the dictionary definition on its head, telling you not to go by dictionary definitions alone, and question all that textbook knowledge that the Indian education system throws at you. It's in Rajkumar Hirani's language, a 'demo" of what is making this Amir Khan film the biggest box office hit of 2009.

The core message of the film is that rote learning and punishing exam schedules are creating machines out of 'original' thinkers. It's a system where grades matter more than learning, and success and ambition are equated with the materialistic wealth that they will bring. But ambition, the moviemakers say, should be made of sterner stuff. One should replace ambition with passion and success with excellence, and rewards are certainly going to follow.

This has struck a chord with repeat audiences all the way from Mumbai to Melbourne. For three hours, all of us, who have gone through the rigours of the Indian academic system, can dream of being free to do what we want, instead of following the diktat of our parents or society.

3 Idiots, in short, is a middle-class fantasy come alive for all those bankers, engineers and doctors who have always wanted to be musicians, writers or perchance, even wildlife photographers. It's relatable, because those who formed a band in college, or wrote poetry in school yearbooks, are sighing into their popcorn and thinking what if... what if we had a 'Rancho' (the film's hero) in our life, then maybe we wouldn't be watching the movie, we would probably be directing it.

It's not just the core idea that's such a hit, the movie makers have also ensured that they bring alive campus life as we ordinary mortals remember it. In Bollywood, going to college normally centres around the college canteen, bunking classes or romancing the heroine, but Raju Hirani and Abhijat Joshi (who shares the screenplay honours) keep hostel life refreshingly real.

Anyone who's lived in a hostel remembers a Chatur Ramalingam or a God- fearing Raju Rastogi. It's a slice of college life with the kind of pranks that are real, anecdotal and that bring about an instant feeling of nostalgia. Even the slightly risqué jokes remind you of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and not David Dhawan. There are fart jokes and underwear baring aplenty, but you don't have to be embarrassed, because your grandma in the movie hall is laughing the loudest at them.

One other reason for the movie earning over Rs 300 crore in just 20 days is that it is unabashedly commercial. The scriptwriters know the 'navarasa' of commercial cinema and they manipulate your emotions in this tightly edited film. They know when to make you laugh out aloud, when to wring a tear, when to add that heroic deed to the plot. They even understand the significance of the interval in a Hindi movie.