‘Give me some sunshine…’
3 Idiots takes a dig at the education system in our country, which needs some serious revamping even at higher education level

By Shubhdarshani Mitra
New Delhi, January 15: The usual joke around these days is that you are an idiot if you still haven’t watched Aamir Khan starrer ‘3 Idiots’. However, I would say you are losing on a precious insight into our present education system and how it should be if you have not seen the movie. The movie beautifully brings out the fact one should run after ‘excellence’ and success will follow.

Come March, board examinations will begin, followed by the results in May. Every year the newspapers carry news items of unfortunate deaths due to Board results. Students who can’t take parental and peer pressure succumb to the stress and take extreme steps. Our higher education also glorifies those who get into the mad race of scoring top marks to be in the league. “We get into the mad race without actually thinking what is that one new thing we are going to learn today,” says Khan, who plays Ranchhod (Baba Rancho) in the movie to a class full of students and to the head of the institute when he takes up the challenge to teach. Maverick Rancho can bathe openly in the campus, believes in sticking to his ideas and smartly fools his heart whenever there is a big problem by patting on it and saying “All is well”!

“The grading system is somewhat like the caste system in our country… The divisions are glaring. Those who perform well in terms of scores get all the limelight and the rest remain in the oblivion,” says Rancho. The movie also shows that Ranchhod, despite being one-of-his-kind and not a bookworm, performs well because he is passionate about engineering. He does not remember the definitions by heart but he understands his subject. In contrast to his friend Farhan played by Madhavan who suffers for four years before he gathers enough courage to tell his father that he wants to pursue photography. On the other hand another student who takes the challenge to think in an innovative manner hangs himself because he cannot take the pressure after he is snubbed by the head of the college.

That brings us to another very significant question, which is how much freedom do we give our students in terms of experimenting with their ideas? So much of hullabaloo about entrepreneurship and innovative thinking when in schools even now it is clichés and tried and tested ways of thinking that get thumbs up!

The movie is hilarious but I wonder how many amongst the audience realized that it also makes us ponder over the remedy to the glitches in our education system which is far from being progressive and honors those who just know how to be a part of the rat race!