Aal izz well !

Saw the season bollywood blockbuster "3 Idiots" yesterday. Here are my observations titled under The Good, and The Bad! This post does not detail the whole movie plot/sub-plots (which you can check on Wikipedia) but only my observations. So this post will be useful only for those who have seen the movie :-)

Before you begin, please remember I am an IIT Delhi graduate, and an educationist for 17 years. These were precisely the theme elements of this movie.

The Good

1. The youthfulness of the theme is refreshing. Young faces (almost adolescentish), fresh dialogues, fresh new vocabulary, peep inside a leading engineering college's supposed daily life.. all make for a good combination.
2. Aamir Khan is superb. His simplicity in carrying out his role, aptly supported by Madhavan and Sharman is enough to keep you glued to your seats.
3. The desire of the Director Rajkumar Hirani to give a strong social message through slickly crafted movies is worth applauding. Given his talent, he could have easily made slicker commercial flicks that would draw in more money without any social message(s). But he has ensured he keeps churning out movies with a message. Good work sir! All strength to you.
4. Humour! Since I am a humour freak, I loved the mature sense-of-humour used throughout the movie. Quite dangerous on some instances, although!
5. The simple message - teach what is direct, understandable and usable - is something I have always practised and hence could relate to, and appreciate.
6. The human values portrayed deserve an applause - help otherse even if they have nothing to offer / be grateful to those who helped you / have a sense of humour in tough situations / when it's action time, don't dither / judge people by their character, not the price of brands they can afford
7. "Aal izz wayle" is a superb theme! It is very refreshing, very entertaining, and very very positive. All is well here!
8. I liked that though they pulled punches on the Director ViruS, but they never really "insulted" him in any way. They stopped short of that always. (The urinating scene is open to controversial interpretations)

The Bad

1. Display of a ragging scene as part of initiation into the first year of engineering, is not a good idea. Ragging is a punishable offence, and the Supreme Court of India has been exercised on this matter for long enough now for filmmakers to understand the importance of not taking any chances of portraying it in their movies, howsoever mature, for the danger of trivialising the issue.
2. Use of some objectionable Hindi words was overdone. I think they could have done with a 50% cut in the use of such words. When watching with kids, it gets uncomfortable.
3. The whole idea of Aamir Khan joining ICE to help his guardian father's incapable son get a degree surrogately, is objectionable. It significantly dents other positive moral virtues being preached in the movie.
4. The movie's ending balances Chatur's successful corporate career with Rancho's highly successful scientific career. There is a slight hint of disparagement towards "primary school teachers" in the sequence, and the message anyway is difficult to understand at that point in time.
5. Drinking liquor is shown as a regular and quite-a-normal affair. That's pretty dangerous, and it may send a signal to many! Pia's drunken outpouring is explainable though.
6. The quality of Hostel infrastructure shown in pretty unrealistic. I remember by IIT Delhi hostel toilets - aarrgh!
7. The idea that those who cram and crack college exams was portrayed well, but got overdone. I mean, do students really distract others before exams so their grades can improve, using tactics shown in the movie? (I know, I know the Director reserves creative freedom, but it stretches the imagination a tad too much for people like me who have seen all this at close quarters).
8. Rancho's suggestion that grades should not be publicly displayed is a good idea, but in India, it will not work. A better idea is to display only roll numbers and grades, and not names. That will be a good balance between the needs of transparency and decency.
9. For the point no.8 above, the argument given by Rancho that when you visit a Doctor, and he finds your protein levels are low (something like that), does he show it on TV? But this is wrong logic. We are not competing against 200 more people in protein tests. So..
10. Three idiots were seen driving a scooter on streets of Delhi (I'm right?) without wearing helmets. A seriously wrong portrayal!  (though I totally agree with Rancho's driving Raju's ailing father facing an emergency to the hospital alongwith Pia on the same scooter).
11. The whole message of the movie got garbled at the end (at least as far as I am concerned) when Rancho turns out to be a great inventor / scientist and hence checkmates Chatur's claims to superior material success implying his methods being better. I would have been happier if Rancho was a school teacher encouraging his students to invent/discover things as they wished, and then bravely would counter Chatur's claims to material success being better.
12. Corporate recruiters will generally not hire you if you tell them that you are on a wheel-chair because you were rusticated for an unmentionable act and then tried to commit suicide. The graciously magnanimous recruiters shown are a dream for all colleges! Ha ha

Before I close, here are the really hilarious moments

• "Tum Gujarati logon ke khane itne khatarnak kyon hote hain?" (why do you Gujaratis have such dangerously named foods?) -  Dhokla, Fafda, Khakhra, Thepla ..
• "What? Pia Chanchad? No no.. I won't change my surname after marriage!"
• "What? Pia Wangdu? No no.. I won't change my surname after marriage!"
• "Millimeter, go get this from the Director's Office.. here is the key" (and both the Director and Aamir throw a key towards Millimeter.. Aamir's is the duplicate stolen one for which he has just been punished!)
• "I was born at 3:15 and at 3:16 my destiny was pronounced by Dad. Mera beta Engineer banega!"
• The politician is laughing heartily when Chatur is speaking out his crammed speech with all invectives inserted.. but the moment the joke is on him, the politician gets upset, and leaves!

So turns out education is a fairly complex thing, with everyone having their ideas about how to revolutionise the whole system, redefine the whole concept and reinvent the way the world should work! Strength to everyone, my Lord, strength to everyone.

And yes, I hate the popcorns priced at Rs 50, 70 and 100! Come on multiplexes, days of super-profit mongering ought to be over!  (the problem is - with kids, you can't even say No. Ha ha)
~