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Friday, July 15, 2011

A belated review for 3 Idiots........

A billion Idiots
240 crores in 10 days. 5 star ratings in most reviews. A well orchestrated author-producer controversy to keep things in focus. Articles regularly that tries to draw the attention to every suicide in the country, as if it is the new phenomenon. Chetan Bhagat mentioned in his blog “Only those who have read the book and watched the movie can comment”. I qualify. Here is my list of grievances.
  1. Is it the same Hirani that gave us Munnabhai part I and II? There was freshness and sincerity in those two movies. The scenes were like the ones we had never seen before. In contrary 3 Idiots is stale. Space pen, a Muslim taking photograph of completely burqa clad ladies, starting of an induction motor – all these must have done the rounds on the internet a thousand times.
  2. The central idea of Amir getting a degree for Javed- Is it possible? Are not there ways by which this fraud would be caught?
  3. Amir is bound by a (moral!) contract not to contact anyone from his college after he graduates. He has to vanish into oblivion, leaving his beloved two idiots, ravishing Pia but it is all right to summon millimeter. Where is the logic? Throughout the movie he tells everyone to do as the heart says. Did his heart say it is all right to ditch the girl he loves, the two friends he practically hand molded? Why only millimeter? I am forced to ask the question that Kareena asks him once? Tum Gay ho?
  4. TZP generalized things to an extent after which parents of young children were not sure on how to deal with children who were not performing. This now makes it difficult for parents with college going children. Any child can now at any time drop in and say the college is rubbish, the grades have no meaning I want to become a singer, an actor, a wildlife photographer and God knows how many other professions that will surface? And what are parents supposed to do? Return the laptop and buy a camera? Get a school refund and buy a pair of dancing shoes? The makers of the movie have fallen prey to the bane of generalization and oversimplification.
  5. V V Chopra goes around making statements like “If the movie had been released earlier, one child would not have committed suicide”. This is simply megalomania. The solutions offered in the films are superficial and impractical. The movie is a fairly acceptable laugh and let’s not glorify to a cult status level.
  6. Chatur Ramalingams of the world do survive and often thrive. The caricature is unfair. No engineering college (I am an Engineer my self) which is application oriented can afford to have a topper who only does “ratta marna”. Simply memorizing will not take you there. The jokes played on Chatur (his stupidity and uncouth behaviour) are vulgar and immature. This tends to project a wrong image, already cemented by thousand other movies, that if you are studious and score marks you are automatically a good for nothing type.
  7. All middle class families have aspirations. The only avenue they have in achieving then is through education. Movies like this make a good profit and probably screw up a few thousand families with such hare brained chicken soup philosophies.
  8. The novel was clean campus fun. What was described in the novel was really possible. Ryan in the novel was not a topper. Raju did not get his girl. Cherian did not have a change of mind. That is real life. These honey coated endings are make believe.
  9. I do believe that our children must do what they want to do. It is the job of the parents to realize, that even for doing that, they need our help. For every Tendulkar that India produces, there are possibly a few hundred or a thousand cricketers, who ignored their education, and today are neither a Tendulkar nor any thing worthwhile. In the movie Amir asks “If Tendulkar’s father wanted him to be a singer?” But how do we know that Mr. Ramesh Tendulkar wanted him to become a batsman? As any other middle class Maharashtrian father I am sure his constant advise would have been “Playing cricket is all right but please pay attention to your studies”

It is the job of the filmmakers to make an entertaining movie and make a profit. My only request is do not take a high moral preaching ground and destroy lives. You have no right to do that.

6 comments:

  1. if the above is not preachy then what is!

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  2. Sorry to say. You seem to be in Chatur's shoes in this blog. Here's why. Chatur is a product of middle-class anxieties (a scene of his parents' drawing-room discussions too, just as with the idiot's parents, could have been an interesting watch) which has assumed mass hysteria proportions over the 'rat-race'. And Chatur's trait of one-upmanship basically stems from insecurity. The middle-class has found it tough-going to adapt to the very rapid changes which have affected India during the past two decades in the society as well as in the economy. Thus, the parental and systemic pressures resulting in, either the student suicides or the burn-outs in those surviving the system.

    So does your blog. It is anxiety-ridden and cannot stomach the idea of a Laptop or a T-Drafter(stethoscopes too) being replaced by a camera or a paint-brush or whatever else is increasingly finding itself respectable to be held in a young person's hand in an ever changing, although uncertain, globalising economy. That you belong to this much harried middle-class is obvious from your cribs. Crib no.4 merely reflects that insecurity. That you are an engineer too, is also obvious. Crib no. 3 dissects human love and loyalty with the cold scalpel of analysis. Being an Engineer is one thing and advertising it in crib no.6, quite another. This trait too stems from the same insecurities i mentioned.

    ===============================================
    "You may win the rat-rate. However, you will still be a rat".

    ReplyDelete
  3. See the point? Else check out:

    http://m.pressmart.com/Home.aspx?event=HTDelhi&dt=05062010&page=900_002&mdl=

    ReplyDelete
  4. also,

    http://akkisden.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/chatur-or-rancho/

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tarun here says the same thing

    http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=103909189648000&topic=12

    ReplyDelete
  6. a contrarian here:

    http://www.minduread.com/2010/01/3-idiots-confusing-nation.html

    ReplyDelete