For the love of books

There has recently been a lot of controversy surrounding Raj Kumar Hirani’s “3 Idiots” starring Aamir Khan with Chetan Bhagat alleging that the screenplay has been adapted from one of his more popular novels “Five Point Someone“.

Chetan’s stance and his subsequent followup with the film’s director and producer can be read at his blog.

I totally agree with Chetan on the front that he doesn’t need the publicity. Even before I realized there was a controversy surrounding the movie, I had seen the mention of Five Point Someone in the newspapers either by the actors or journos covering the movie. More so I believe, there will be hardly anyone in India who reads popular fiction and has not heard about Chetan Bhagat.

The point to be considered, however is if the movie is not an adaptation of any novel and is an original script in itself then why was a contract signed with Chetan in the first place before release?

A 5-10% rip-off hardly requires a contract. If you recall, most Bollywood movies at one time were a rehash of just one plot – a boy and a girl falling in love with a villain adding twist to the story. Who owns the script to that – the screenwriter who wrote the first movie? No producer is ever going to sign a contract with any author for that and since the makers of 3 Idiots did so and that too without showing the movie to Chetan Bhagat, I am sure something is amiss when they rubbish all his claims.

This in fact makes me curious on what was actually mentioned in the contract that they needed to cover up their behinds?

Further, if the movie is so original then why was Aamir Khan specifically asked not to read the book lest he be influenced? I really like him as an actor and think him to be a man of integrity, however his comments on Five Point Someone being just an inspiration for the movie (can be found here) are a bit out of this world.

When I saw the movie I thought it was just like Taare Zameen Par albeit with a different social issue – bringing out the flaws plaguing our educational system, which I also had tried to highlight in a previous blog post (I hope that this was posted before the controversy erupted, can someone confirm?? ) On the other hand, Five Point Someone brought to the fore though in a bit of an exaggerated way of how we students used to live our lives in IITD.

Thus, in my opinion 3 Idiots puts more focus on the teachers and their teaching methods while Five Point Someone concerns itself with the students’ campus life. However, the storyline did turn out to be similar, to what degree is suspect.

Instead of Chetan Bhagat it is the makers of 3 Idiots, who by embroiling themselves in a controversy, are trying to gain from his fame in the hope that all those millions who have read his book also see the movie. As Aamir Khan has apty put: “Nobody knows him but Chetan is a big star”

Edit: And oh, that “him” in the above quote actually refers to Abhijat (or symbolically 3 Idiots maybe??) and not Aamir himself.