Three Idiots and Rocket Singh

Rajkumar Hirani has carved a niche out of making light and entertaining movies with a social message. 3 idiots entertains – mostly – and has a message on our education system. But I found it too long with the second half meandering without purpose. The twist was of no consequence, the webcam-assisted medical scene totally irrelevant and the depiction of middle-class poverty puerile. They killed what might otherwise have become a classic along the lines of M’bhais. Since Aamir has a history of interfering with directors, I don’t know if he or Hirani was the culprit. In any case, the acting is first-rate, the comedy is funny, and the narrative is mostly engaging. Worth the movie ticket, but no more.

As much as 3 idiots is ruling the box office, there was another recent movie with a similar message. In Rocket Singh, the protagonist is unable to cope with the ways of the corporate world and decides to follow his heart, which expectedly is against the unsaid rules of the game. There was hardly a dull moment, and except for the poignant if over-the-top climax scene, every other line or shot brought a smile to my face. Its biggest achievement, in my view, is that the humor never looked cheap, this despite one of the main characters being a porn-addict! And “cheap” is what some of the gags in 3 idiots seemed to me. But at the box-office, where it matters, 3 idiots hit the bulls-eye (although RS did reasonably well in overseas markets).

Whereas Rocket Singh portrayed the grim reality of life, 3I invokes the supernatural power of “all iss well” to calm your nerves during bad times, continuing on the lines of jaadu ki jhappi and Gandhigiri. I liked Lage Raho for perfectly walking the tightrope of keeping things light but spreading a message, but 3I overextends to one side or the other. Some of the comedy – the ragging scene to demonstrate the conductive properties of salt water, patient on scooter – is purely to elicit laughs with no relevance to the story line whereas when its message time, you can safely switch off your mind for a few minutes. I guess this is to an extent a reflection of our reluctance to be frank. We like our messages sugarcoated – if the message is lost, there’s at least the sugar. It is probably this optimism that is well captured in the WSJ article, Indian Standard Time Warp.