FPS vs 3I

Thursday, 24 December 2009. Paid premier of 3 idiots. Rumored to be a Five Point someone adaptation, but foiled by Chetan Bhagat himself, an interview I saw in the television days before. I clearly heard him that the only thing same about the two entities is that the boys involved are Engineering Students. So, while watching the film I completely forgot about comparing them.
The movie is surely a hit. A master plot penned by Rajkumar Hirani, with drastic twists and turns, compelling you to laugh and cry at the same time. And if you are an engineer, you can relate and learn more from it. A heavy movie, that’s what I said when my friends asked for reviews.
Its only after my father, who has read and criticized each and every book of Chetan Bhagat including the latest, 2 states, told me that it’s a true adaptation with maximum plots taken from the book. But I refused to accept it because both of them made different marks in my mind, then how can be both of them similar?
Five point someone is a book with a tagline, what not to do in IIT. It tells the story of Chetan Bhagat with fictionalizing some of the parts. But 3 Idiots is totally a different motive film, it focuses on the lost causes of life and education. It stresses on the point that Excellence is more important than success. So, are we forcefully trying to prove that both the novel and the film are the same thing?
No. We are not trying to prove the same. Neither Chetan Bhagat is. The film production team came to him and bought the rights of the film, and paid him the commission he is entitled to. He was told that the movie will be only 5-10% of the book. It doesn’t matter when you have bought the whole rights of the book. What matters is that Chetan Bhagat has no name from starting to the end of the movie. He does have a name in the end of the film, in the rolling credits, but to see that, I had to go to the hall and sit till the end for the second time to catch a glimpse of it. The name of the novelist and the book appears after a long list of the cast. More than that, the director of the film, Rajkumar Hirani and Abhijat Joshi took the whole credits of writing the story, without mentioning that it is adapted or re-adapted.

Generally, when a film is made on a novel, in the very start or just after the last scene of the movie, the name of the novelist appears, atleast the phrase, “BASED ON”. Many films in Hollywood are made in the same manner and they gice due credits to the original writer, no matter what or how they adapted it. Even our bollywood movie KAMINEY had the initials, “based on the story of CAJETAN BOY”. So was it so hard for The 3 Idiots team to give due respect to the original writer, or do they think they can escape this plausible situation?
Even if they deny and say that Chetan Bhagat is doing all this for mere publicity, people of India know which part of the story is correct. Those who have read the book and have seen the film, must have lost some respect for Rajkumar Hirani and Aamir Khan.
I liked the book and the film too. And according to me, it was wrong in the 3I’s part that they didn’t give the respect Chetan Bhagat deserved. Novelist in our country need to be encouraged and not merely discouraged with such incidents, because truth can be barely hidden in such cases.