Story: Rancho, Raju and Farhan enter the elite engineering college, only to learn lessons of life that cannot be taught through books and classrooms. Principal Viru Sahastrabuddhe is no help at all
Move Revius: Rest assured, all ye desi cinema buffs, Aal Izz Well in apna Bollywood. If 2009 can begin with Dev D and end with 3 Idiots, it is indeed time to sound the seetis and taalis for one of the most exciting years of contemporary Indian cinema. Truly, this has been the year of the I.d.i.o.t in movielore: the Intrinsically intelligent, Downright smart, Inimitable, Original and Talented film maker, actor, story teller, musician, lyricist, dialogue writer and producer.
3 Idiots is the perfect end to an exciting year for India: the year when the aam aadmi voted in progress, liberalism, secularism and turned his back to corruption, communalism, regionalism. The three idiots, Rancchoddas Shyamaldas Chanchad ( Aamir Khan) , Raju Rastogi ( Sharman Joshi) and Farhan Qureshi ( R Madhavan) , are perfect archetypes of the new age Indian who is essentially a non-conformist, questioning outmoded givens, choosing to live life on his own terms and chartering new roads that consciously skirt the rat race. Of course, they begin on the beaten track - due to societal/parental pressure - but refuse to become cogs in the wheel. Naturally, they end up as the Frostian hero ( Robert Frost's Road Not Taken) who made all the difference to his life, and the world, by taking the road less travelled by.
The film begins with the entry of our threesome in the city's elite engineering college. It takes the first tryst with the mandatory ragging sessions which enunciate who the leader of the gang is going to be: new entrant Baba Rancchoddas, as his friends fondly call him. Rancho not only leads his friends through the maze of India's competitive, high-pressure, rote-heavy, illogical and almost cruel education system, he tutors them on several life mantras too. Like, running after excellence, not success; questioning not blindly accepting givens; inventing and experimenting in lieu of copying and cramming; and essentially following your heart's calling if you truly want to make a difference.
So; you have the threesome embroiled, time and again, in a confrontation with authority, as represented through the domineering figure of Viru Sahastrabuddhe ( Boman Irani) , the unsmiling Principal who venerates the cuckoo because the bird's life begins with murder. Kill the competition, because there is only one place at the top, believes the Princi. Poor, mistaken Princi! Doesn't he know that competition is effete, model students like Chatur ( Omi) end up as duhs in real life and non-conformists ( Rancho and Rocket Singh Inc) , who care tuppence about being on top, could end up as eventual winners. More importantly, they could be high not only in IQ ( intelligence quotient) but in EQ ( emotional quotient) too, never losing their humaneness and social networking skills