Wednesday, January 06, 2010

5 point idiots

The best way to market your blog is by writing about the breaking news :) As high court rulings on religious hatred and Srinagar bombings are not of interest to my already depleted reader base, I thought I will give my views about the raging controversy between 3 idiots and 5 point someone.
I read 5 point someone when I was in college and just loved the book because I could identify with the life at a national college depicted in the book. The book will remain as one of my all time favorites. After seeing the movie 3 idiots, I cannot think about a better treatment that book could have met. Rajkumar Hirani has successfully created a motivating story perfect for a movie of mass appeal(read it as complete bollywood movie with all key ingredients- heroism, masala and romance)out of a book which was a simple, honest portrayal of Chetan Bhagat's exposure at IIT Delhi. The way the director has stitched together an entertainer while keeping the backbone intact is admirable. If you have noticed, the director has filmed the movie in such a way that all the sub-plots of the book - Hari's love story with the director's daughter, Ryan's perpetual machine, prof. Veera etc have either got removed or tweaked or merged together to make it look like a single rhetoric. The key aspect of the book which was loved by people like me- the iconoclastic Ryan(Rancho), the deep rooted friendship in the jungle of competition, an egomaniac professor and the life at IIT forms the basis of the movie.
Some key changes introduced by the script team has been a superman Rancho(he topped instead of finishing at the bottom of the class like Ryan), the humor touch given to the Chathur's character, the wrapper plot in which Rancho turns out to be an impostor and most importantly how the 3 idiots successfully change the system and become successful subsequently. Over and above, the script has incorporated some contents from e-mail forwards very cleverly at key areas. For eg:- pencil and pen on space. All in all, I reiterate the movie is brilliant and has been able to fix every single problem the book had.
Coming to the controversy, I really don't understand what is Chetan Bhagat claiming now. According to the contract uploaded on Vidhu Vinod Chopra's website which CB signed he has sold his novel for 11 lakhs allowing VVC and Hirani to adapt it any format they want. Now when the movie made 240 crores, he realized that his price tag was too less. I used to respect CB after I read 5 point someone. But his next 2 novels "one night at call center" and "3 mistakes of my life" were abysmally poor works of literature and were no better than a third rate bollywood movie. After wasting time on those 2 books, I decided that he was just a one book wonder and "Five point someone" had more to do with his life at IIT and his observations there rather than his skill as a writer. Anyway I heard the "2 states" is good, may be he followed the same old formula again, only difference is this time it is life at IIM. :) I agree that the books I mentioned were "best sellers", so may be he is keeping his reader base happy. So please see the above details as my personal opinion. The worst thing, CB could have done is the unwanted press interviews after the controversy. In an interview he gave to TOI, he was literally wailing like a child. The immaturity with which he was complaining to the reporter about how his mother missed his name in credits and how he plans to leave writing and join ISKON is not accepted from the IIT-IIM educated India's best selling English author.

26 comments:

Namith said...

Correct! Chetan Bhagat tried either to get more credit (read publicity) or more money, or got jealous with the film's success' credit going to other people and tried to grab back some attention through controversy. All these were uncalled for, and in the end all he got was some cheap publicity and some bad opinions from people like u and me!

Yours Truly said...

CB's issue is that Hirani and Abhijaat Joshi are calling this their story which is 'loosely' based on 5 pt someone, instead of calling it an adaptation. Buying the rights to a story does not mean that you own the story... The importance given to Vikas Swarup by Danny Boyle is a classic example of what CB is expecting from Hirani...

Arjun Mohan said...

@Namith - we both concur on this topic

@yours truly - In the present world where cinema is a business you cannot expect people to be benevolent with credits after pocketing the money you asked for. Vikas Swarup may have got the deal worded well but CB was stupid enough not to or may be Danny Boyle was an exception; you cannot expect exceptions.

Ajith said...

Mr Arjunn...u hav double standards..u hav tweeted that the author deserves credits...but Mr.Hirani called Bhagat and made him read the script even b4 shooting was started and he only agreed that the script is entirely different from his book...and he wont cry afterwards...but when the movie brought down all box office records along with it he forgot what he had said...and poor Hirani did not record these dialogues...the rogue began crying that he shud hav received more respect than what he really got...he was really violent bcaz his usual masterpice in all books..the famous 'sex' was not included in the movie...what a shame to hirani...

Namith said...

Hey Arjun, congrats! Your "already depleted reader base" has started reading/commenting again. Maximum comments you received for a post in a long time!

Arjun Mohan said...

@Ajith - I never twitted that, I only twitted saying that I liked the book and it is similar to the movie which is the same thing I have written about in the blog. You just concurred with my opinion in the comments :)

@Namith - Yes man, so this is the trick. Write on controversial interesting news at the right time. May be I should write about out twitter Tharoor now :)

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Unknown said...

CB's Prob is only that they dumped the author credit, which was in the contract.
"The adapted from the novel by"
is crammed b/w some credits of junior artist.
He deserved better.

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