3 Idiots
3 Idiots is a 2009 Indian Hindi-language coming-of-age comedy-drama film written, edited and directed by Rajkumar Hirani, co-written by Abhijat Joshi and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra.
The film stars Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan and Sharman Joshi in the title roles, while Kareena Kapoor, Boman Irani, Mona Singh and Omi Vaidya co-star. Narrated through two parallel timelines, one in the present and the other set ten years earlier, the story follows the friendship of three students at an Indian engineering college and is a satire about the intrinsic paternalism under the Indian education system.
Adapted loosely from Chetan Bhagat’s novel Five Point Someone, It is produced by Chopra under the banner Vinod Chopra Films, 3 Idiots incorporated real Indian inventions created by Remya Jose, Mohammad Idris, Jahangir Painter and Sonam Wangchuk, the latter of whom also inspired Khan’s character.
Upon its release on 25 December 2009, 3 Idiots received widespread critical acclaim with praise directed towards its direction, themes, humour, story, screenplay, soundtrack and performances of the cast. It was also the highest-grossing film in its opening weekend in India, had the highest opening day collections for an Indian film up until that point, and also held the record for the highest net collections in the first week for a Hindi film.
Eventually, it became one of the few Indian films at the time to become successful in East Asian markets such as China and Japan, eventually bringing its worldwide gross to ₹460 crore ($90 million) — it was the highest-grossing Indian film ever at the time until 2013, when Dhoom 3 surpassed it.
At the 57th National Film Awards, 3 Idiots won three awards, including Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. Additionally, it won a leading 6 awards (tying with Dev.D), including Best Film, Best Director (Hirani) and Best Supporting Actor (Irani).
Overseas, it won the Grand Prize at Japan’s Videoyasan Awards, while it was nominated for Best Outstanding Foreign Language Film at the Japan Academy Awards and Best Foreign Film at China’s Beijing International Film Festival.
3 Idiots is now considered to be among the greatest Indian films ever made.
The film also had a social impact on attitudes toward education in India, as well as in other Asian countries such as China and South Korea. It was remade in Tamil as Nanban (2012), which also received critical praise and commercial success. A Mexican remake, 3 Idiotas, was also released in 2017.
Plot
Chatur Ramalingam, a successful vice-president of a US-based company, reminds his old college rivals Farhan Qureshi and Raju Rastogi about a bet he made with their classmate and Chatur’s nemesis Rancho ten years ago.
Chatur has returned to India to conclude a business deal with Phunsukh Wangdu, a famous entrepreneur. The three go to Shimla to find Rancho, reminiscing about their time at the Imperial College of Engineering (ICE) in Delhi.
In college, Rancho was passionate about learning and often clashed with the strict college director, Dr. Viru Sahastrabuddhe (“Virus”). When a student named Joy Lobo is denied graduation by Virus for not submitting a project, Rancho tries to help finish his project for him but finds out that Joy has committed suicide by hanging.
Rancho confronts Virus about the intense pressure on students, but Virus dismisses him. Afterwards Rancho meets Farhan and Raju’s families. Farhan’s father is very strict with his son’s education and has been pushing him to long for engineering and brushing off his true passion for wildlife photography. Raju’s family is struggling through poverty in which is why he is studying to become an engineer.
One night, Rancho, Farhan, and Raju crash a wedding party, not knowing it is for Virus’s daughter Mona. Mona’s younger sister, Pia, is initially upset with Rancho but starts liking him after he exposes her money-minded fiancé Suhas. Pia breaks up with Suhas.
Virus warns Farhan and Raju about associating with Rancho, so Raju moves in with Chatur aka Silencer, a competitive student who relies on rote learning, eats pills that cause flatulence and distributes porn magazines on the night before an exam. Rancho and Farhan prank Chatur by altering his Hindi speech with vulgar modification, leading to his humiliation. Furious, Chatur challenges Rancho to see who is more successful in ten years.
Before their final exams, Raju’s father has a heart attack. Rancho and Pia help save him by bringing him to the hospital. Virus bets Rancho that neither Farhan nor Raju will get a job after graduation. Rancho tells his friends why they struggle: Farhan’s passion is photography, not engineering, and Raju is fearful of his future. Farhan and Raju promise to confront their issues if Rancho confesses his feelings for Pia.
They drunkenly break into Virus’s house, and Farhan and Raju urinate on his letterbox. Virus notices Raju at his doorstep and threatens to expel him unless he betrays Rancho. Not wanting to disappoint his family or to betray Rancho, Raju attempts suicide but survives and is paralyzed and near catatonic for months, leading Virus to revoke the expulsion.
After Raju recovers, he succeeds in the interview and gets a job, and Farhan convinces his father to let him become a photographer.
Humiliated at Raju’s success, Virus sets a difficult exam to fail Raju so he cannot claim the job. With Pia’s help, Rancho and Farhan steal the exam paper, but Raju refuses to cheat and throws it away. However, Virus manages to find out that the exam paper was stolen and he barges into their room and expels the trio.
Following the trio’s expulsion, Pia, having given the office key to the trio, finally confronts her older sister, Mona, and her father by revealing that her brother, who was presumed to have died in a train accident, actually committed suicide due to the pressure his father had put him through into becoming an engineer, since he wanted to pursue his own dream by becoming a writer instead, but only to simply write a suicide note.
On a stormy night, a pregnant Mona goes into labour while unable to reach a hospital, but successfully delivers her baby with Rancho’s, Farhan’s and Raju’s help. In gratitude, Virus forgives the three, reluctantly passing down his space pen to Rancho as a mark of honour. On graduation day, Rancho disappears.
In the present, Farhan, Raju, and Chatur reach Shimla and find out that the real Ranchoddas was a different man. After Farhan and Raju threaten to flush his late father’s ashes down the toilet, the real Ranchoddas explains that their friend was actually Chhote, the son of Ranchoddas’s family’s gardener, who took Ranchoddas’s place to get an education and earn a degree for him.
He tells them Chhote’s address in Ladakh. On the way, they crash Pia’s wedding with Suhas in Manali and convince her to join them.
In Ladakh, they find a school run by their friend. Chatur mocks Rancho, thinking he is merely a teacher, but is shocked to learn that he is actually Phunsukh Wangdu, the person he is eager to make a business deal with. Chatur accepts defeat, and the friends run away laughing. Phunsukh happily accepts Pia’s marriage proposal after she kisses him.
Cast
Credit – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_Idiots#Cast
- Aamir Khan as Ranchhoddas “Rancho” Shamaldas Chanchad / Chhote / Phunsukh Wangdu, a carefree student who is naturally intelligent and gifted. He later becomes a famous entrepreneur and scientist, who teaches when he is not conducting research (based on Sonam Wangchuk)
3 Idiots - Kareena Kapoor as Pia Sahastrabuddhe, a successful doctor and Rancho’s love interest, youngest daughter of Virus and Mona’s younger sister.
- R. Madhavan as Farhan Qureshi, a student with a passion for photography, who studies engineering to appease his father. He is later revealed to be a successful wildlife photographer who has published books of photographs.
- Sharman Joshi as Raju Rastogi, a student who attends ICE for the sake of ending his family’s poverty and is afraid of failure. He now has a successful corporate job and became a wealthy person.
- Boman Irani as Dr. Viru “Virus” Sahastrabuddhe, the strict and controlling principal of ICE who only believes in a competitive cutthroat education system and rote studying.
- Mona Singh as Mona Sahastrabuddhe, elder daughter of Virus and Pia’s elder sister
- Omi Vaidya as Chatur “Silencer” Ramalingam, a Uganda-born Puducherrian student, who believes in rote study and takes memory-enhancing pills, with the side effect of silent but smelly flatulence.
- Ali Fazal in a cameo appearance as Joy Lobo, a senior student who committed suicide because of Virus not letting him graduate
- Rahul Kumar as Manmohan a.k.a. “Millimetre”
- Dushyant Wagh as a grown-up Manmohan a.k.a. “Centimetre” who becomes Rancho’s (Phunsukh’s) assistant at his school in Ladakh
- Parikshit Sahni as Farhan’s father (dubbed “Hitler Qureshi”), a strict but a loving and caring father who ultimately only wants his son to be happy.
- Farida Dadi as Farhan’s mother
- Akhil Mishra as Librarian Dubey
- Amardeep Jha as Raju’s mother (dubbed “Mother Teresa“)
- Mukund Bhatt as Raju’s father (paralysed)
- Olivier Sanjay Lafont as Suhas Tandon, Pia’s money minded ex-fiance, who only cares about money
- Rajendra Patwardhan as Govind
- Rajeev Ravindranathan as ragging senior student
- Jayant Kripalani as a company head who conducts Raju’s job interview
- Chaitali Bose as Kammo, Raju’s sister
- Javed Jaffrey as the real Ranchhoddas Shamaldas Chanchad
- Arun Bali as Shamaldas Chanchad
- Achyut Potdar as Machine Class Professor
- Madhav Vaze as Joy’s father
Our General Review
Alright, buckle up, because I’m about to take you on a wild, laughter-filled ride through the cinematic masterpiece that is 3 Idiots—a movie so good it makes you want to hug your college buddies, question your life choices, and maybe even attempt to deliver a baby in a dorm room (please don’t).
This 2009 Bollywood gem, directed by Rajkumar Hirani, is like a spicy plate of biryani: it’s got everything—comedy, drama, heart, and a side of existential crisis. So, let’s dive into why this film is the cinematic equivalent of finding an extra samosa in your takeout bag.
First off, the story. 3 Idiots follows three engineering students—Rancho, Farhan, and Raju—as they navigate the soul-crushing pressure of India’s education system, a place where dreams go to sulk in the corner and rote memorization is the national sport. Rancho, played by Aamir Khan with the charm of a mischievous puppy, is the guy who walks into a classroom and asks, “Why are we even doing this?” He’s not just a student; he’s a walking TED Talk with better hair.
Farhan (R. Madhavan) wants to be a wildlife photographer but is stuck studying engineering because his dad’s got a PhD in Disappointing Your Kids. Raju (Sharman Joshi) is the sweet, superstitious guy who’s so stressed he probably prays to his calculator before exams. Together, they’re the Three Musketeers of “screw the system,” and their friendship is so wholesome it’ll make you text your old roommates at 2 a.m.
The plot is a glorious mix of college shenanigans, heartfelt moments, and life lessons that hit harder than a professor’s red pen. From the moment Rancho struts into the Imperial College of Engineering (ICE, because apparently even colleges need cool acronyms), you know he’s trouble—the good kind. He’s the guy who’d fix a drone with a paperclip and then use it to prank the dean.
The movie jumps between their college days and a present-day road trip where Farhan and Raju are hunting for Rancho, who’s vanished like my motivation on a Monday morning. Along the way, we get flashbacks of their antics: sneaking booze into the dorm, crashing weddings for free food, and, oh yeah, delivering a baby during a monsoon with a vacuum cleaner. Normal college stuff, right?
Now, let’s talk about the characters, because this movie’s cast is so perfect it’s like they were genetically engineered for these roles. Aamir Khan as Rancho is a revelation. At 44, he’s playing a 20-something student, and somehow, he pulls it off without looking like he’s trying to sneak into a youth discount at the movies.
His energy is infectious, his smirk is iconic, and his “Aal Izz Well” catchphrase is so catchy I’m pretty sure it’s still stuck in my head rent-free. Madhavan and Joshi are the perfect sidekicks, bringing heart and humor to every scene. Then there’s Virus, the dean, played by Boman Irani, who’s so delightfully evil he makes Darth Vader look like a motivational speaker. Virus isn’t just a villain; he’s a walking PowerPoint presentation on why micromanaging is a personality flaw.
And let’s not forget Kareena Kapoor as Pia, Rancho’s love interest, who’s smart, sassy, and probably the only person who can keep up with Rancho’s chaos. Their romance is cute, but let’s be real: the real love story here is between Rancho and his bromance squad.
The humor in 3 Idiots is like a perfectly timed fart in a quiet classroom—unexpected, hilarious, and just a little bit rebellious. Whether it’s Rancho redefining “machine” in a lecture hall (spoiler: it involves a lot of zippers) or the gang pulling pranks that make you wish you’d been this cool in college, the comedy lands every time.
There’s this one scene where a student, Chatur (aka “Silencer,” because of his, uh, digestive issues), gives a speech that’s been sabotaged in the most glorious way possible. I won’t spoil it, but let’s just say it’s the kind of thing that makes you laugh so hard you scare your cat off the couch. The movie’s got slapstick, witty one-liners, and even some dark humor about the education system that’ll make you go, “Haha, wait, that’s actually depressing.”
Speaking of the education system, 3 Idiots doesn’t just poke fun at it—it grabs a megaphone and roasts it like a stand-up comedian at an open mic night. The film’s message is loud and clear: chasing grades is like chasing a pigeon; you might catch it, but you’ll still end up with crap on your hands.
Rancho’s mantra of “pursue excellence, not success” is the kind of advice that sounds cheesy on a bumper sticker but feels profound when you’re watching him dismantle the system one quirky analogy at a time.
The movie calls out the obsession with ranks, the pressure to conform, and the way parents and teachers sometimes forget that students are humans, not Excel spreadsheets. It’s a love letter to dreamers, misfits, and anyone who’s ever wanted to tell their boss, “I’m not a robot, Karen.”
But don’t let the heavy stuff fool you—this movie’s got heart bigger than my grandma’s Sunday lunch spread. The friendship between Rancho, Farhan, and Raju is the glue that holds it all together. They’re there for each other through breakups, breakdowns, and borderline illegal stunts (again, vacuum cleaner baby delivery). There’s a scene where Raju faces a life-or-death moment, and the way his friends rally around him will have you sobbing into your popcorn. Even the side characters, like the guy who’s always eating or the professor who’s weirdly obsessed with his pen, feel like real people you’d meet at a college cafeteria.
Visually, 3 Idiots is a treat. The college campus looks like Hogwarts for engineers, with sprawling lawns and lecture halls that make you wish you’d paid more attention in physics. The Ladakh scenes in the present-day timeline are so gorgeous they’ll make you Google “flights to India” before the credits roll.
The soundtrack is another winner—give me “Aal Izz Well” and “Zoobi Doobi” any day, and I’m ready to dance like nobody’s watching (or like everyone’s watching, because Bollywood). The songs don’t just feel like random music videos; they’re woven into the story, whether it’s the gang singing about surviving college or Rancho and Pia falling in love to a tune that’s stickier than glue.
If I had to nitpick, I’d say the movie’s a tad long at nearly three hours—my bladder was sending SOS signals by the end. And yeah, some of the plot twists are so wild they make soap operas look subtle (no spoilers, but there’s a reveal that’s like, “Wait, WHAT?”). But honestly, these are minor gripes. 3 Idiots is the kind of film that grabs you by the heart, tickles your funny bone, and leaves you thinking about your own life choices long after the credits roll.
In conclusion, 3 Idiots is a cinematic hug, a comedy riot, and a middle finger to anyone who says you have to follow the rules to succeed. It’s a movie that makes you laugh, cry, and maybe even call your mom to say, “I’m okay, I promise.” If you haven’t seen it, drop everything (except maybe that baby you’re delivering) and watch it. And if you have seen it, watch it again, because like a good curry, it only gets better with time. Aal Izz Well, my friends—Aal Izz Well.