|
| Lage Raho Hirani |
| Abhilasha Ojha / New Delhi Jan 02, 2010, 00:17 IST |
|
He’s done it again. The director whose fun films pack a hard social message is relishing the success of 3 Idiots. Abhilasha Ojha finds out what makes him tick.
Midway through our conversation, I ask film director Rajkumar Hirani what he thinks of the education system in India. Until then the interview — it’s an informal conversation, actually — has been relaxed and casual. The minute I mention education, however, Hirani pauses, then answers thoughtfully: “Don’t you think we need an education system that really makes us think?”
“I was an average student,” he continues, “but when I didn’t get admission in any of the science subjects, I took up commerce.” As I stare at a newspaper headline which announces that Hirani’s latest venture, 3 Idiots, has made Rs 93 crore in the first four days since its released, he adds: “My parents weren’t worried, and thought that if not an engineer, with commerce [as a subject] I would become a chartered accountant instead.”
What happened then? “Oh,” he says, “I realised my heart wasn’t in business or commerce and that’s when I decided — very reluctantly — to approach my father and tell him that I wanted a career in films instead.”
Listening to Hirani, anyone who has watched 3 Idiots might be forgiven for wondering whether some of the film’s scenes are taken from the director’s own life. Hirani laughs and shrugs, saying, “Yes, I suppose, you could say so.”
But why did Hirani, in the second, post-intermission half, mark a twist in the identity of Ranchoddas Chanchad? Why was there such a marked departure in the plot, especially when the first half of the film was flawless, taut and perfect? Isn’t Hirani, in that sense, really mocking an education system in which one person can easily study and take exams on someone else’s behalf?
“I cannot disclose the identity” he says now, “but Abhijat [Joshi, the film’s co-writer] and I know of a person who was happily studying in a college on behalf of his friend! No one ever got to know anything and didn’t suspect that the student was, in reality, someone else!”
In fact, it was after meeting this “real-life Rancho”, Hirani explains, that Joshi and he got the kernel of their idea. “By the time I’d finished reading Chetan Bhagat’s 5 Point Someone, I was inspired to make a film on a subject that [included] not just the Indian education system but also the expectations of family members that weigh students down.”
At this point, I mention Harsh Agarwal. The co-founder of the Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE) is upset with the “lighter sense in which ragging has been shown in 3 Idiots” and demands to know why the director didn’t give the matter some serious thought. Hirani is quick to retort: “There’s no way I would support ragging. But then, no filmmaker supports murder or rape. Then why are they still shown on celluloid?”
On the whole, Hirani is happy with the response to his film. “People are connecting to it, and that is what is so touching,” he says. He and Joshi share other anecdotes from their respective school, college and hostel lives, and Hirani says he had been waiting to do a story like this, where he could interject real-life episodes into a film.
For the record, Joshi is now a professor of English literature at Otterbein College in Ohio, USA, but has also been a screenwriter for many of Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s productions, including Eklavya: The Royal Guard, Lage Raho Munnabhai, Mission Kashmir and Kareeb.
And while Joshi is remarkably skilled in the art of storytelling, Hirani’s manner of telling stories on celluloid has long been supremely effective. Together, Hirani and Joshi have managed to create films which have won both critical acclaim and box-office returns. Munnabhai MBBS and Lage Raho Munnabhai revolved around a goofy goon (Sanjay Dutt) who questioned society at large on various issues that plague our country. The manner in which those social issues were presented is what made the films so distinct. In that sense, Hirani lovingly gift-wraps his films with humour, sprinkling them with extraordinary moments and delighting us even when his work carries a moral message.
With 3 Idiots, Hirani’s directorial voice becomes intense, without undercutting the lighthearted spirit of the film. “You’re finished by the time you turn 25 years old,” he says, returning to the theme of education. “Our education system doesn’t encourage you to think. You’re only supposed to earn marks. Your value is, basically, your percentage.”
For his part, he adds that he did feel pressurised when “my parents were fine with my average marks but that neighbour Shyam Uncle wasn’t”. His own journey into films — Hirani studied editing at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune — therefore marked a positive change, not just in the way he felt about himself, but also about his future. “I wanted a future in films, and when I was in FTII, I felt relieved, I felt challenged, I felt good,” he says.
The applause for 3 Idiots has barely died down but Hirani is already working like a maniac to polish the script for the next Munnabhai movie: Munnabhai Chale America. He’s also working on yet another script, the details of which he refuses to share.
As a director who has delivered so many hits, does Hirani ever feel constrained to focus on creating blockbuster films? “Jaadu ki jhappi and Gandhigiri became buzzwords in the industry,” he tells me, “and I wondered — especially after Lage Raho Munnabhai — whether 3 Idiots would succeed. It has, in fact, gone beyond my expectations.” And he concludes with a smile, “It never helps to get stressed out.”
It’s the same smile that the audience sported when they walked out of the multiplex after 3 Idiots.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Read Business news in |  |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Advertisements |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Content Guide
