Multiple Idiots

For the new year, we treated ourselves with a Hindi movie in a cinema hall after 1.5 years. We went to see “3 Idiots”, which turned out a treat to watch. It is an excellent movie with almost no loose ends.

When I came home in the evening, I figured that this really is a story of multiple Idiots. There was a full spat on television. The producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra got offended on a question regarding sharing of credits with the writer of Five Point Someone, Chetan Bhagat and asked a journalist to “shut up”. With such dirty laundry being washed in public, I felt like the first Idiot who went and paid for this movie. I should have just waited for the DVD to come out.

The second Idiot is Raju Hirani. Raju, if you really lifted the “setting, characters, plotline, dramatic twists, one liners, message – almost all aspects” from “Five Point Someone”, give due credit. I am a blogger who writes on Astrology and hates it when people copy passages from my astrology articles and post on the web as their own. Chetan is at least the author of this book and deserves something better. Even when I copied assignments and xerox’ed others’ notes at IIT, there was an implicit, heartfelt gratitude - “tu God hai, boss…”.

The third set of Idiots is the pair of Aamir and Vinod Chopra. Guys, shut you mouth and let Chetan make some noise. Your opinion has even less weight than mine. I actually paid money to watch this movie.

Lastly, in my very humble opinion, Chetan Bhagat is also a pretty big Idiot. Dude, lets face it… your novel is not a work of literary genius. It is a five pointer story through and through. I did not feel either happy or excited or surprised while reading it. There was nothing that I already did not know. My first reaction was of indifference and felt I would have had much more fun during a cack session with my wingies.

Raju and Abhijat took this five point something story and modified it to score a nine point something, making it a rare case of a movie being better than the novel. The best elements that make this movie a pleasure to watch are not present in Chetan’s book, however fantastic they may sound. Whether it is a moron pissing on a spoon/light bulb or the “aal is well delivery” happening in a hostel mess, it comes from the mind of these two writers. Chetan’s book does not have the irony of an inventor being discovered dead using his own invention. There is no Sept 5 and Laddakh angle in this story. Chetan’s heroine is nowhere as charming as Kareena.

Someone might argue that such characterization is not possible in novels – to which I would like to politely direct to the Harry Potter series (which score a perfect 10, btw). My suggestion to Chetan is to only ask for as much credit as the book really deserves. Also, I would like to ask everyone to remember the fate of the other movie “Hello” based on the other novel “One night at the call center”.

If “3 Idiots” is a big hit, it is not because of 5.someone’s plotline, but because of the treatment it got from the writer/director. They could have as well walked into any IIT, interviewed a couple of hostellites and got the plots from there. Chetan’s book was successful, no doubt, but what really matters is excellence and success naturally follows excellence, jhakh mar ke.