3 idiots, What’s behind the comedy?
3 idiots earned its success across the globe, and many agree that success is primarily due to the flawless actings, universal senses of humor, and the motivating plots such as the scene where Rancho safely delivered the baby with his creatively built equipment in urgent conditions and impressed, ‘Virus’ or Viru Sahastrabudhhe, his teacher who has always hated him for his innovations. However, I believe that the American audience did not fully experience the complete, more in-depth, and deeply felt message that this movie was trying to convey as it addresses one of the critical local issues in India, education. As marked by many, India’s education experience is something that is non-translatable without actually putting your hands on it. India’s perseverance towards its Exam-oriented education has grown way beyond a culture, rather, it’s becoming a belief that is incomprehensible to contemporary Americans.
With a society acquiring fewer resources but far more population than America and in addition, desperate wealth distribution is shown in a 2017 study that 73% of the wealth generated in India went to the richest 1%, it is not surprising but rather reasonable for India to adopt a high strength Exam-oriented education system. Furthermore, the view on education has long been integrated into the top Indian’s social stratification such as the caste system that divides Hindus into 4 classes in the order of Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and the Shudras, where the highest class of Brahmin is formed by priests and academics, the lowest class of Shudras is formed by peasants and servants. A worth noting example from the film is Virus’s ability to expel students from the school, which indirectly determines the life or death of those students, which symbolizes the power of academics in India.
Consequently, those societal issues and its intermediate education system yield to schools such as the Indian engineering college in the film. Just like Rancho’s metaphor on the school as a pressure cooker, students from Indian schools suffered pressure from the public, convincing them there is no other way one can work towards success other than doing well in school. The continuous emphasis on education creates the fear of potential failure among students among the students which generates a vicious circle. The watching experience in India and in America differs from the profound feelings about the education of Indian locals that can create a strong contrast between the comedy and the life or death in the school system.
