**This column contains spoilers.**
Fifteen years after its release, “3 Idiots” remains one of the most authentic movies India has ever produced.
India’s largest film industry, Bollywood, is renowned for its choreographed glamor and sensational plotlines. A movie like “3 Idiots” — a comedy-drama that follows three college students in India as they navigate the academic and familial expectations of their culture — immediately stands out among its peers. The film experienced record-breaking mainstream success and still stands as the highest-grossing Indian film of 2009.
The pressure that the main characters in “3 Idiots” face is not foreign to an average student pursuing an education in India. The country’s National Crime Records Bureau has reported successively higher student suicide rates throughout the last decade. A record of 13,044 students died by suicide in 2023, equating to at least one student passing away every hour.
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At the time of its release, “3 Idiots” provoked nationwide contemplation of the Indian education system’s intense rigidity and the flawed societal attitudes that perpetuate it. The main characters, Ranchoddas “Rancho” Shamaldas Chanchad (Aamir Khan), Farhan Qureshi (R. Madhavan) and Raju Rastogi (Sharman Joshi), each expose a different issue.
Chanchad’s inventive, unconventional learning style clashes with the rote method standardized by his professors. Qureshi’s parents stifle his desire to be a photographer, expecting him to choose the more socially acceptable engineering path. Rastogi crumbles under the demands of life-defining exams and raising his family out of poverty, eventually attempting suicide.
Almost two decades later, Chanchad, Qureshi and Rastogi’s stories are still a reality in much of India and Asia. “3 Idiots” is rightfully hailed for its insightful social commentary, but the numbers on the NCRB report are a solemn reminder that nothing about the Indian education system has changed since the movie’s release. It begs an uncomfortable question — after all these years, is it a good thing that the film stays so intensely relatable?
Perhaps the answer lies in the movie — that is, the first and arguably most iconic song on its soundtrack, “Aal Izz Well.” “3 Idiots” reminds you that it is still a Bollywood production, as the main characters dance in their communal bathroom while energetically lip-syncing to the simple saying, “All is well.”
It is not just the whistling in trash cans or cheeky scratching of inappropriately-shaped chairs that earned “Aal Izz Well” its reputation as the unofficial anthem of “3 Idiots.” Equal parts playful and profound, the song pulses with a ragtag, rebellious optimism that sharply contrasts the rules and anxieties of college.
As “Aal Izz Well” indicates, “3 Idiots” is a breath of fresh air. Its mere existence is significant because it acknowledges the struggles students go through under harmful systems are worth capturing and empathizing with. While the film sadly does not result in legislative change, it certainly lives on in India’s collective memory.
“Even now there is a new generation of people, younger people that are connecting with it,” said Omi Vaidya about getting recognized on the streets of India for his role as Chatur Ramalingam. “That film persists in people’s minds through television.”
