Satire is cruel. It is the most devilish form of humour. Yet, underneath the surface guffaws lies a mirror which makes a sordid face at society. Jonathan Swift could pull it off in Gulliver’s Travels and even better in A Modest Proposal. Mark Twain did it in Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences. These works date back to the 1700 -1800s. Recent attempts at satire have been nothing but stale. So pulling off a satirical take on the Indian education system was a big risk for Raju Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra and it pays off… almost!
Plot: When Ambrose Bierce said – “The world is full of fools but I am the biggest of them all”, he probably didn’t know that the same could have been reinterpreted more than 250 years later in the form of 3 Idiots. Let’s be fair – the plot of the film is NOT novel. There is nothing extraordinary about it. In fact, it is an amalgamation of assorted clichéd situations throughput the length of Hindi cinema. What is novel, you ask? Well, the script is. The way each situation is written, precisely and with great finesse is what the highlight of 3 Idiots is. For once you feel as if the script was actually put together, line by line. The first half is full of satirical potshots at the Indian education system which is the highlight of the film. The second half however, is a different story. The film traces the life of 3 Idiots (or friends) – Farhan (Madhavan), Raju (Sharman Joshi) and Ranchodas Shyamaldas Chajad (Aamir Khan – unique name, to say the least). The name is not the only thing unique about Rancho. He has a unique outlook towards life. He is the controller of his own destiny, following his own ideals. Farhan and Raju go on a quest to find their missing friend and thus the film goes to and fro into flashback when the three friends arrived at an engineering institute to complete their studies. There the free willed Rancho clashes with the “do it by the book” Viru Sahastrabuddhe (an Einstein looking over the top Boman Irani) and wins the heart of the dean’s daughter Pia (Kareena Kapoor reprising her Jab We Met role to an extent). Ironically, Rancho always manages to come first, even after preaching his own “do it your way” methods (some cinematic liberty there). The college culture is vividly explored – from ragging to pranks and the usual hostel life. The first half ends with an interesting twist. However, from there, in the second half – the film goes into oblivion with the marriage of Pia’s sister (Mona Singh) and her newborn child. You could probably take a nap there and not miss anything. The film then redeems itself in the climax with a tragic end, it sums up the film’s objective – the Indian education system is killing creativity, and thus individual identity.
Themes: The film takes a dig at the Indian education system which we are all aware is not the most creative system in the world. Being creative and thinking out of the box might get you some whistles from batch mates and a few good words but in life, it’s not going to get you anywhere. You have to study and abide by the book to succeed. The best way to do that is to vomit all you’ve learnt into the written examination. This way, you’ll not only get good marks but you are learning to become an acceptable member of society by learning to conform and abide by set standards of society. That is why it appears very unconvincing when Rancho himself manages to top whilst preaching unconventional individualistic methods.
While the first half is the highlight of the film, the second half is a disappointment – riding high on emotional appeal rather than core substance. The film adopts a nihilistic and absurdist (not to be confused with ‘absurd’) stance in criticizing the education system. Much like successful satires, it does so with disdain, completely dissuading itself from personal and emotional attachment, thus distancing itself from a personalized tone. 3 Idiots is not a personal view, its an objective one – where the narrator is observing from a distance, thus is able to spot various flaws and absurdities prevalent in the structure and being able to comment on them. This is where the film is highly successful.
However, when the film shifts in paradigm from an absurdist viewpoint in the first half to that of an existentialist one in the second half – applying the “Aal is well” philosophy to life, it fails miserably. Not only does the film fall drastically in pace and content, the message itself appears flawed. It makes sense that “Aal is well” is a pun on life which isn’t going so well but the outcome isn’t the desired. The writers contradict themselves by valuing individual non conformist approach on one hand and then preaching the “Aal is well” on the other. The idea is that “Aal is NOT well” and thus steps needs to be taken that Aal remains well. Instead, the film wraps the audience in a blanket of false sense of security that “Aal is well” is the motto to face your problems. On the contrary, it’s closing your eyes to a social evil. This is catastrophic for the film which was riding high in the first half but falls flat on the face trying to apply ‘life fundas’. I am sorry, Aal is not quite well.
Indians are always projected and lauded for being “hard workers” but not for success. Rote learning can only get you to a base platform. From there, you are on your own. Being in Australia, I have understood the value of individual opinion – most of the questions here begin with “in your opinion”. However, for the average Indian, this is the first exposure to non conformist, individualistic views. For the first time, he is asked to think for himself and he is basking in that glory. In the global world, outside India, individual personality crosses the threshold, not robotic automatons of knowledge. The reason for the conformist “Aal is well” philosophy might be that Raju Hirani and Vinod Chopra might not have wanted to unleash individuality as a mass concept and instead just give a glimpse of it because the average Indian is not aware of the expanse of personal valuing. Both ways, “Aal is well” fails miserably as a motto because of its misplaced faith in conformist convention.