Azim Ali

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Film Analysis of 3 Idiots and Societal Impacts on Individualism

There is a classical Hindu scripture and story part of the Mahabharata called the
Bhagavad Gita. In this story, one can tell the importance of sacrifice and dharma in Indian society. A legendary archer, Arjuna, has a major dilemma in the story in which he was to go to battle and fight, as he was a Kshatriya (warrior caste), or to not fight because he was going into battle to fight his uncles and aunts. Arjuna asked his chariot driver, an incarnation of Krishna, what he should do, and the driver told Arjuna to obey his dharma and fight just as his duty entailed him to and fight his loved ones. The dilemma that Arjuna experiences in the Bhagavad
Gita is the same as the one many of the characters in 3 Idiots face. 3 Idiots is the perfect amalgamation of how dharma and izit affect one’s life in South Asia. Throughout the film, there were stories of characters facing the problem of being accepted in society as something other than what their parents wished them to be or do. 3 Idiots is a great movie that pushes the idea that duty and izit is not limited to family pressures or societal pressures, but also it pushes the idea that duty and izit can come from within and from individualism.
The movie is a story of how three friends faced the major issues and problems with the education system in India and around the world. Three main characters: Rancho, Raju, and
Farhan all coming from different backgrounds meet together as roommates at the Imperial
College of Engineering. Rancho comes from a background of actually loving the joys of building machines. Raju comes from an impoverished background of suffering and depression. Farhan comes from a normal family, but he has been pressured by his father to become an engineer rather than becoming a photographer. All of the characters in the film were trying to figure out what they wanted to for the rest of their lives because they were in their early 20s and confused about the real world and meeting their families’ needs. The three friends experience college

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together in a very joyous fashion and overcome many issues with their principal Virus. They all throughout the film and ending the film start to fight against the pressures put on them by pushing back.
Farhan was major character in the film that portrayed the role of Arjuna in Bhagavad
Gita very well. Farhan was from a more middle class family, but his parents, particularly his father, wanted him to be a productive citizen of India and the world by becoming an engineer.
Farhan had portrayed his emotions for loving photography, but his father always shut him down because that such a job did not meet his criteria for being respected in the community. Farhan, out of love to his parents, still decided to attend ICE and become an engineer to appease his family. Throughout the film one could note the trouble going on inside Farhan’s head on fighting his battle with his parents and battling his dream and goal in life. It was obvious that his goal in life and the reason he was put on earth was to become a photographer. He had a passion for it just like Arjuna was an excellent archer and his duty was to fight. Farhan’s chariot driver was none other than Rancho. Rancho pushed him in the correct direction. Rancho explained to
Farhan that if he were to put away his job offer of working with a famous photographer at the moment he received the offer, then he would regret to his deathbed. This is why Rancho pushed so hard to Farhan that he should try and fight and explain to his parents in a loving manner that being an engineer was not his goal in life. The courage that Rancho gave Farhan was just enough for Farhan to defy his father’s goal, but his father started to understand Farhan’s love and passion of photography after Farhan’s passionate explanation to his father. This is just another moment in the film where Rajkumar Hirani pushed the idea of individualistic duty. Farhan embodied the quote, “Indeed, recent Hindi film love stories focus on individuals making their own choices in the face of parental opposition” (Derne, 95). Farhan’s character helped pushed the movie be

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more popular in India because individualism is something audiences in India strive to watch because it does not happen enough in their actual lives. “Even though most Indians reject cinematic messages urging rebellion against authority, filmgoing is still part of the process by which young men gain greater autonomy over their own lives” (Derne, 89).
Rancho was the character in the film that everyone strived to be. He embodied the idea of being a perfect student at ICE because he questioned not only what the professors questioned him, but he questioned the system. He hated the idea of memorization and how Chatur studied for courses. He thought the manner in which Chatur studied would not matter in the real world because he is not trying to apply his knowledge. Rancho believed in studying as an act of application. Also, Rancho was not doing what he was doing because of pressure from anyone.
He was only going to college at ICE just to learn. He made a deal with the actual Rancho’s father that he would pay for Rancho’s education as long as Rancho gave his degree to his son. Rancho was the only person from the start of the film who was doing what he actually loved to do, which was learning and helping. He became the ideal for individualism. He always pushed for his way of life and lived in the moment. His patented phrase, “Aal izz well,” just pushed that idea further.
The main phrase of this movie is that of, “Aal izz well.” Rancho always loved that phrase and repeated it to himself whenever he felt like he was in trouble. The phrase is a reminder to the characters in the film that it not always about thinking into the future. It is pushing the idea that the future is still to be determined, and the present is not the future. Rancho uses the phrase multiple times to magical degrees throughout the film. When Rancho first came to the campus, the senior students were mocking the new students by making them do embarrassing tactics, but
Rancho kept repeating to himself “Aal izz well.” He tells Raju when he was worried about 42 exams, quizzes, and projects in one semester that “Aal izz well.” Rancho pushes the idea that one

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should stop thinking into the future and start thinking about the present. The issue was that the phrase was not enough to bring Raju out of his coma-like state. Some people like Raju are just stuck thinking into the future about his sister’s wedding and family, and it took the lie from
Rancho that Farhan was going to marry his sister for free to bring him out of his coma. One could tell that the duty that Raju had in the movie was to serve his family. The phrase was a reminder to the characters that duties and izit are important in life, but so is living your own life and your own seconds and minutes. It reminds the audience as well that individualism is just as important a duty as societal pressures. This is why Rancho loved to play with his friends and have fun with his friends so much in their time at ICE.
Suicide is a prevalent theme that is highly explored in this film that not many other films have mentioned. In the movie there are three mentions of suicide or the acting of suicide. The first mention of suicide was Virus’s son, who committed suicide for not meeting the expectations of his father’s demands out of him. One could note the manner in which Virus took the suicide.
He did not seem to care for the suicide as much as a reasonable person would. Virus seemed to take suicides in and around his life like most people in India and around the world. He does not care for people who kill themselves because he believes life is a competition and those that are weak do not deserve to stay in society. Virus and India seems to ignore people who commit suicide because of the weakness those people bring. People tend to ignore the types of people in
India who commit suicide because the majority of them are younger and non-established. Ever since 1987, the suicide rate in India has been gradually rising from 7.9% to 10.3% in 2007. 36% of suicides committed in 2012 were amongst 15-44 years old. 3 Idiots portrays this topic in a great manner. When Joy who was a student at ICE hung himself, everyone in the film was dancing to the song, “Aal Izz Well.” This was very ironic because many who are under pressure

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like Joy was for having failed by what Virus told him; nothing is truly “well”. When pressures of trying to please his family and his principal failed him, Joy decided that society did not need him and his efforts anymore. This is a very horrendous manner to think because Joy could have easily deserved a job in bettering society with his pedigree of knowledge up until that point when he committed suicide. A rather alarming fact about suicides in India is that more literate people commit suicide than those who are illiterate (“Suicides in India,” 182). This speaks volumes of the education system in India, and the pressures put on the students.
Another such suicide attempt was done by Raju one of the main characters of the film.
After learning from Virus that he was to write to his parents, himself, that he was expelled from
ICE for his acts of peeing on Virus’s house, Raju tried to commit suicide by jumping out of the window in Virus’s office. The timing of the suicide was also rather intriguing because it was during Virus’s 7.5 minutes of napping while being shaven. Virus was completely surprised by
Raju’s action, as was the audience. Raju luckily managed to survive, but could not move his body or talk back to anyone speaking to him. In a CNN article published in 2010, “Dr. Harish
Shetty, a psychiatrist, said the message of the film was real. He attributes the recent spate of suicides to rapid changes in India's social and economic landscape, which has led to a breakdown of the traditional family structure” (Kapur and Singh). One could note the pressures that Raju was under. He was under the pressure from his family to succeed because it could bring his family out of the line of poverty if he does well in college. When Raju learned about his punishment for being immature, it destroyed everything within him. All that he wished to accomplish was shattered with the letter he had to write to his parents about his expulsion. He, just like Joy, had no more reason to live anymore. His usefulness to society, particularly his

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family, was ruined and tarnished. He did not feel the need to be a human because he had no more duty or purpose left in life.
The experience that all the students endure throughout their college experiences in the movie and in reality are very well suited to the quote Farhan gives, “We were robots blindly following our professors’ commands. He was the only one who was not a machine.” This quote does not apply to only students at ICE, but also to society in India, in general. Much of the society in India is dependent on taking commands from others, which could be from family or bosses. “The student suicide rate fueled by all the pressure from studies and parent’s expectations that they are trying to fulfill. While the movie attacks the system, it is very much pro-education” (Serpytyte). This blogger analyzed the impact of the parents in the film, and how they influenced the suicides through the expectations put on their children. The “professors’ commands” also inherently refers to the capitalist system that is pushed around throughout the film. In a capitalist society, everything is dependent on the failure or success of another. This makes society far more intertwined and tied together. This is another reason why individuality is pushed throughout the film because to get to unique and atop the capitalist system is not necessarily beating the competition. It is to be more unique than society. This is what made
Rancho (Phunsukh Wangdu) such a unique character at the end of the film. He was a teacher who was also a famous inventor living in the middle of the mountains in India. That is what made him more successful than the antagonist Chatur. Chatur did well and better than everyone else except for Rancho, but still lost because he was stuck in the mind of capitalism and competition. Another character that was pushing the boundaries of the film in pushing his agenda was
Millimeter. He was a servant-like boy who helped students with homework, moving in, and other

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menial tasks so he could save enough money to attend college for himself. His character was very individualistic. He had one passion, and that was to save up enough money for college himself. His character was rather unique in terms of Bollywood movies because he was a servant like character. “Filmmakers operate with a distinct and internalized sense of boundaries and limits to what is and is not permissible” (Ganti, 284). Millimeter’s character was the exception to that statement Ganti agrees with. The filmmakers of 3 Idiots made it clear that even a servantlike character Millimeter wanted to push himself further into society by educating himself. He was the complete antithesis of the servant-like character that was in Virus’s office that would shave him everyday in Virus’s 7.5-minute nap. The fact that the filmmakers pushed Millimeter’s character into Centimeter at the end of the film was rather great because although the film was talking about the flaws of the education system at ICE and schools in India, it still in the end believed that education was what was needed to further society. Wangdu had such a passion for his knowledge gained at ICE that he went to a village in northern India and made one of the best schools in the world.
This film was the epitome of pushing the agenda of following one’s true duty. Just like
Arjuna’s story in Bhagavad Gita every character in this film lived up to their duties and dreams.
Farhan followed his dream and individualistic duty to become an animal photographer. Raju kept with his duty to take care of his family. Wangdu, formerly known as Rancho, followed his dream to become an engineer and teacher. Lastly, Pia even followed her dream to become married to
Rancho by leaving the altar before arranged marrying Suhas. What made this film so special was the escapist push on Indian and western society to resist authority and follow dreams and duties.

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Bibliography

1. 3 Idiots. Dir. Rajkumar Hirani. Perf. Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Madhavan, Sharman
Joshi, Boman Irani, and Omi Valdya. 2009. Film.
2. Derne, Steve. “Men Embrace Individualism and Love.” Movies, Masculinity, and Modernity:
An Ethnography of Men’s Filmgoing in India. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press,
2000. 89-111. Print.
3. Ganti, Tejaswini. “Pleasing Both Aunties and Servants.” Producing Bollywood: Inside the
Contemporary Hindi Film Industry. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2012.
281-314. Print.
4. Kapur, Mallika, and Harmeet S. Singh. “Student Suicides Worry Mumbai Educators.” CNN.
Cable News Network, 04 Feb. 2010. Web. 08 May 2015.
.
4. Serpytyte, Agne. "3 Idiots." The Asian Cinema Blog. N.p., 05 Feb. 2014. Web. 08 May 2015.
.
5. “Suicides in India.” The Registrar General of India, Government of India. 2012. Web. 08
May 2015. .