Nothing Idiotic about this

A couple of decades later, well after he might have hung his boots, Raju Hirani’s filmography could well be defined by cinema historians in a single phrase – Movies with a heart. His two Munnabhai ventures and the latest ‘idiotic’ expression (you could very easily call it Munnabhai 3 for that matter) are less about love, friendship and relationships and more about listening and following that instinctive beat on the left side of your ribcage. I must admit I was a bit of a skeptic when I saw the first Munnabhai movie. I sensed that Hirani hit the right issues but showed too mushy and melodramatic a way out. I guess it was just a bit of my realistic cynicism that initially rejected the ‘jadoo ki jhappi’. I saw Munnabhai MBBS thrice before turning around partially. By the time I saw Raju Hirani’s take on Gandhigiri (going to the movie alone with the parents away on a break from me) I was a convert. Through the movie, I was amazed at the refreshing take that Hirani brought on Gandhi, an individual I greatly admired but cynically (again) believed had moved too far away in history for India to reclaim him on anything other than currency notes. With his third flick, Hirani touches upon a topic that has been covered briefly before – Bollywood’s angst ridden unemployed hero of the 80s finding no use for his graduation degree, Munnabhai himself deriding medical education that treated real patients as lab guinea pigs and Aamir Khan’s own recent directorial debut that focused on the mad desire of the parents of school going kids to see them topping their classes.

3 Idiots goes a bit further and takes on the foundations on which our higher education and dare I say much of our endeavors post that rest. Before I make another critical comment on the same a disclaimer may be in order. I am very much myself a part of that system. I have been through my share of Board exam criticality talks, my mother taking a break from work during the exams themselves to ensure my three meals a day and remaining nutrition wasn’t affected during the lead up to the papers, my father silently enquiring about my preparations and then my evaluation of the performance during both the Boards and my CA exams. I have run around coaching institutes during my CA days, borrowed and copied notes, learned a lot of mumbo-jumbo by rote (forgotten almost all of it by now) and primed myself by pasting a planner with exam days and key preparation milestones on my room wall next to the study table. I might not agree with what our manner of learning produces but I must be fair enough to attribute my current position (whether good or bad) to it.

I was reminded of the same during a conversation with a couple of colleagues and my boss on a wet summer night in New Jersey about five months ago. On a dinner table populated by Engineers + MBAs and a lone B.Com + CA, I was the only one arguing against the rat race that our kids enter into high school onwards and how engineering colleges and professional degrees often are seen symbols of societal validation to be attained rather than merely as routes of academic knowledge occurring on a journey aroused by interest and liking. I wouldn’t want my kid to go through an engineering college if I could help it, I remember saying that night. Obviously it didn’t go down too well with the engineers present. It was then that my boss reminded me that it was no use if you thumbed the rat race but still remained a turtle in life. You may not like it Aftab Khanna he told me, but you are here sitting here in America because you worked hard and came out the same competitive professional system that you now very happily curse.

Yes, America…the ultimate symbol of your having arrived in your career. Remember our mothers telling us during those high school and college days about so and so’s son going to the US, sponsored by his ‘kampany’. I must confess I was lost for an answer on that dinner table at the end of the argument, wondering if I was failing to see the greys in the jigsaw and making the same mistake of thinking in a linear fashion, albeit in the opposite direction, as I shunned everything about our higher education. It was only later that night that my tubelight hit a fuse in the brain and I thought – Heck, I could have done anything other than CA, excelled at it and perhaps still landed in the US by the time I was 26. So much for an American visa!

Which is what Hirani tries to communicate with his Idiots. Its presented quite simply through the contrast between the rote learning, spectacled bookworm and easy going protagonist who can find simple solutions to everyday problems by being able to ‘apply’ his knowledge beyond the books. Its a movie without many layers and in a straightforward way it critiques the mad rush of the educated young of the Indian middle class towards societal validation masquerading as ‘success’; a message captured in a single line that a father says to his son when presented with an alternative career decision, ‘Guptaji kya kahenge?’. Hirani makes a call to listen to the heart and go after ‘excellence’ (a fluid, hard to define word) rather than marks and easy acceptable choices. It is a movie as much about self-discovery as about summoning the will to stand for your choices.

But it is the movie’s critique about the assembly line of GPA, marks, ranks and job chasing professionals that shall arouse the most questions, especially if, like me, you are very much a product of that system. Is success measured by the size of that pay cheque, the suburban apartment or house and that big luxury car outside that house? In an India increasingly experience an upward mobility of a huge mass of its people, it’s a question worth putting forward. In a debate where, over the last two decades, we had chosen Amitabh Bachchan’s ‘bangla, gaadi and bank balance’ over Shashi Kapoor’s just ‘Maa’, Hirani and Shimit Amin’s Rocket Singh that came out a couple of weeks ago, make a pitch for a middle ground for morally driven achievement driven by passion rather than naked hunger of wealth and ‘success’.

I remember my school principle, a lady whom I deeply respect and admire for the simplicity and clarity of her thoughts remarking repeatedly that the there was only slot at the top and it was tougher to stay there than getting there – a remark I heard every time she saw the ‘Ist’ rank on my report card. I was a bit apprehensive to be open about it then, but I silently disagreed with her. Over the years I have seen enough people make good in life who had been written off in school examinations. A close friend who flunked a class X subject and then gave ‘compartment’ exams a few months later with borrowed notes is a young confident lawyer receiving global offers. A cousin written off by many in the family as hopeless was just waiting to be thrown into the big bad world on his own away from us cynics to chart a course that has literally taken him places. The best Chartered Accountant I worked with during my three years with a global accounting firm was someone who missed figuring in our Institute’s merit list by half a dozen marks and who at an age of 28 can easily teach a thing or two to many senior partners of the firm. There might not be certificates to prove examinational excellence for these people, but in their own right they have found a measure of success, all because somewhere they perhaps found a calling. Yes, it’s tough being at the top and you can’t survive in a competitive world by just standing and not moving your hands. But surely, our children can be allowed to chose their battles, be given the freedom to explore fields to compete. That I guess is Raju Hirani’s message for many of us wondering where we have landed up and where we are headed (a mid life crisis possibly?). Perhaps its not worth chasing what we are running after. Perhaps the chase lies on a road we locked years ago in a corner of the study table.

Almost a decade ago, inspired by the many armymen in the family and flush with seeing images of the Kargil war I had developed a slight interest in the Services as a career option. In a pre-internet age, I remember responding to an Army newspaper advertisement that carried a small chit that you could mail back to Army HQ for a detailed brochure. My mother saw me sending the mail, was not too enthused but didn’t say anything openly. My father, who had been used to hearing his son announcing that he wanted to be CA (or a journo) for a few years now, didn’t respond initially. A few days later, on a car ride, he softly brought up the subject of my letter. I don’t mind your joining the forces, I remember him telling me, but make sure that you do it with a full heart. I want you to excel in what you eventually do, he told me,…I want you to aim for being the best amongst those around you and you would easily reach the top. He would have liked Raju Hirani’s 3 Idiots I think. Much like Raju’s heroes, he was a man with a big heart.

P.S. – Quite liked Kareena Kapoor for once btw. Cute like someone I know... ;)

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