Three Idiots in One

Aamir, the all-knowing Bollywood hero has done it again. (see previous)

At first, he got some cheap publicity by traveling all over the country in different attires to attract attention. The film 3 Idiots for sure, has done exceedingly well and Aamir may be giving a pat on his own back thinking that it was his gimmick that resulted in the Box Office success.

By all accounts, it is a movie well made and all those involved should get due credit. It is another thing that true to typical Bollywood style, the producer, director and actor have ignored to give due credit to Chetan Bhagat, whose book Five Point Someone provided the base for the movie.

Understandably, the author of the book is aggrieved that his name appears at the end of the title credits almost as an “also ran”. Now that the movie has done well even beyond the wildest expectations of the makers, they are upset that Bhagat is making noises in public.

Both Rajkumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra took great pains to tell the world that the story is written by someone else working for them. They also got flustered and angry amidst persistent questions raised by the media.

Unfortunately, the truth cannot be hidden by angry shouts and assertions. As early as February 2008, a Bollywood blog had reported that the Hirani was going to make a movie adaptation of the book with Aamir in lead. See here. Even when the movie was released, many reviewers clearly mentioned that the entire movie was largely based on the book. See for example here:

And yet, the movie makers insist that the movie is developed by their own genius. Aamir, the other genius who has acted in the movie, suggested during the media meet that Chagat was raising objections to gain publicity. Well, the idiot should know that whatever he (Aamir) did was all for cheap publicity, only for having acted as one of the three idiots in the movie. So, the person based on whose book the movie is made has every right to speak out which is far from saying that he is doing it for publicity now that the movie is such a success.

It is difficult to tell Aamir, the irrepressible, to shut up and keep playing his movie roles which he is good at. Self-styled geniuses are like that.

And as for plagiarism, Bollywood is known for it for so long. Making clones and copies is an obsession with Bollywood –it is truly the Ulhasnagar in movie world.

Even reputed movie makers like Mahesh Bhatt (another self styled genius) are not known to be averse to plagiarism. The song Ya Ali from his movie Gangster was a straight copy from an Arabic song by Guitara which he must have known. Listen



There are many sequences in his other movies which were straight copies of Hollywood movies which has already bee reported widely. Even Aamir starrer Rang De Basanti is said to have been based on All my Sons and Jesus of Montreal.

Bolly - the clone masters

So Bollywood has always been shameless and brazen when it comes to copying whether movie themes or music. It is not going to make any difference to them if people like Bhagat keep believing in Gandhi and Truth. The irony of it all is that this controversy is actually further helping the movie even if it will help Bhagat sell some more copies of his book to people curious enough to make a comparison between the movie and the book.