A Novel, A Film

’ Never judge a book by its movie’ – JW Eagen

'Have you read the book? if not, then shut up!' thundered Vinod Chopra. Nobody knew whether it was sheer impatience or the arrogance of having netted hundreds of crores out of 3 Idiots but it was the wrong move. The media and the public immediately rallied behind Chetan Bhagat who gleefully commented in his blog that after this incident, the world will understand who is at wrong and who is right.

Unfortunately, the rage after the episode fizzled out after Chopra apologised immediately and within no time, Hirani released an explanation in You Tube. All speculations were put to rest and eventually it was Chetan Bhagat who had to apologise with a stinking egg on his face.

I couldn't decide whose side to take as I had not read the book or seen the film so I was scared of Chopra screaming Shut Up at my ears. I've read the book and seen the film now so I can safely write about it without fearing anyone.



My biggest hope on 3 Idiots was about the Hindi film industry adapting a book into a film. The practice of making novels into films was virtually non-existent in Hindi industry. The only example that comes to our mind was Devdas. Even in other important regional industries such as Tamil and Telugu there are sporadic attempts but nothing significant to note, except perhaps Sujatha in Tamil whose superstar status allowed him to work comfortably with directors.

This absence of such practice has immensely affected our industry. Filmmakers are not good story writers usually and the converse is also true. J K Rowling couldn't have earned five rupees by choosing a film making career, which is an altogether different skill than writing. Even the best talents such as Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood mostly adapted novels or short stories into films. There are spectacular exceptions to this rule (Michael Crichton, Guilermo Del Toro) but this is generally the case. That's why our directors end up making run of the mill products, and even our best directors couldn't avoid producing redundant films or turning to Hollywood for story ideas, and resorting to plagiarism.

The only solution was to adapt Indian novels. India has great novels and amazing writers to its credit. Indian novels are being made into acclaimed Hollywood productions (Slumdog Millionarie, The Namesake). If this practice takes root here and if the mainstream filmmakers begin making novels into films and succeed then we can expect much better films and hope for an end to plagiarism. Consciously or unconsciously 3 Idiots carried this heavy burden of hope and it was almost delivering, until Chetan Bhagat decided to take the wind out of the sail.

Clearly, he had gone and lied miserably in his blog about the contract, script, credit, and the adaptation. The film suitably credits him as promised in the contract. There is no credit title called 'Story' as Bhagat complained. 'When the award for story is given who will collect them' asked Bhagat. Hopefully somebody would have told him by now that there is no such award and if he aspires for one he should aim to write a better book and hope for a Booker.

The book is quite mediocre. Other than occasional chuckle, it doesn't evoke anything and often you are laughing 'at the book' rather than 'with the book.' The script adaptation is brilliant, and if I were Bhagat, I would wonder how in the hell Joshi and Hirani managed to extract such an amazing script out of this shabby piece of text. Not grumble that 'my story has been stolen'.

As of now, all the parties concerned seemed to have apologised at some point or other. Nobody wanted to topple the gravy train and apparentlly what price did Bhagat get to sell his apology will remain an unknown mystery. However, the flip side to this controversy is we can't quickly start to dream of an adaptation series to start. Fearing similar controversies, filmmakers will think twice before buying rights to not just Bhagat's next work but even from other authors. That's another nasty contribution from this greedy writer. His gain was our loss.

Initially, the reports that Aamir Khan had not read the book kind of disturbed me and him commenting that Hirani requested him not to read it wasn't quite convincing. Finally reading the book opened my eyes. If Aamir Khan had read the book, he would probably have refused to sign up. Even if he had, chances are that he would have botched up his role as Roncho. I didn't gain anything either except overcoming my fear of Vinod Chopra to write this piece.