Last week, I had a chance to see the movie 3 Idiots in my Composition 11 class. It was quite an experience, for it was my first time seeing a movie from India, and for the satire that made my class dies of laughter. The 3 Idiots is a 2009 movie starting Armir Khan as Ranchoddas “Rancho” Shamaldas Chanchad / Chhote / Phunsukh Wangdu , and produceđ by Vidhu Vinod Chopra production in India. According to Cambrigde Dictionary, satire is a humorous way to criticize a idea, or a person, to make a political statement. The movie 3 Idiots makes a perfect satire out of every unjust things in India education and society.
The first thing I can see is the outdated practice in education. In the movie, Dr. Viru Sahastrabuddhe, or “Virus”, represent the India’s education. Virus in the movie is the strict director of the college that Rancho, Raju and Farhan study in. He is a hard line doctrinist and stubbornly stick so much to his saying, ” life is a race, if you don’t run fast you’ll get trampled.” On top of that, every end of semester, everybody score is giving out to public to view. The rank of everybody also determines the seat in the end of semester picture like caste system in Hindus. This system treat students based on their score, not their talent. In the movie, two people had died because of this caste system. The first one we see is Joy, for not able to complete his project on time, and get not getting pass the semester. The second one, who we will learn later in the movie, died, as he couldn’t become the writer he wanted, instead, he had to become an engineer. The 3 Idiots perfectly shows us how outdated the India’s education is, by only focusing one’s the grade, not one’s talent.
The next thing I see is the old-fashioned tradition that children have to study to become what parents want them to be. This is a problem that is still plaguing the education system in many Asian country. We can see this in “Dr. Virus” family: boys will become engineers, girls will become doctors, and in Farhan’s family, as Farhan has to give up his dream to become a wildlife photographer. This shouldn’t be happening in a modern democratic society. People should have the right to follow their excellency and do what they love. In the movie, a person had taken his own life, for his dad denying him his dream. The 3 Idiots shows us that, parents should not pressure the children to study what they dont like, in stead, they should encourage the youth to follow what they love.
The last thing that is making fun of, but not as prominent as the first two thing, is the inefficient healthcare system. It takes a lot of time for ambulance to get to the patients. Raju’s mother when his father had a stroke used to say: “Ajeeb desh hai hamara, pizza tees minute mein pahuchne ki guarantee hai … lekin ambulance?” ( Our country is strange, pizza delivery is guaranteed within 30 minutes … but ambulance?) Please notice that it has been two hours at that moment in the movie since she called an ambulance for her husband. In the end, Rancho and Pia have to ride Raju’s father to the hospital. The second time is when Rancho has to ride Pia’s motorcycle in front of the ambulance to force other cars out of ambulance’s way. The time is when Mona (Pia’s sister) deliver her baby. The ambulance couldn’t get there because the city is flooded, forcing Rancho, Farhan, Raju and the whole campus together to help Mona’s delivery. The movie clearly show the healthcare system of India is antiquated, and could affect life of patient in a bad ways.
The movie 3 Idiots show us many antiquated tradition in the life of not only student, but also people in India. From the caste system in education, to pressuring children to study the profession that parents like, to the ambulance are satirized. We should abandon the outdated way of thinking, antiquated tradition and fix the problem in the society to make success chase you. “Follow your excellency, and success will chase you… pants down” – Rancho.
Source Cited
IMDb, IMDb.com, 24 Dec. 2009, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1187043/.
Cambridge Dictionary, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/satire.
Filmy Quotes, https://www.filmyquotes.com/movies/36
James' Blog 
Well done, James!
There is a little that is disorganized, however. The example of Pia’s brother’s suicide should be in paragraph two, and not an example for the education paragraph. Also, in the 2nd body paragraph, you write, “This is a problem that has been plaguing the education system… but I think you mean to write the “traditional system of career choice,” or something like that.
So my advice is: write your essay in a Word format first, then edit it and revise carefully before you post it!
🙂
What a great film!
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Also, you have forgotten to add your source. For example, you quote Raju’s mother but you have no source at the end as a Work Cited nor do you have any parenthetical reference in your text. This is serious and means that you have plagiarized. Please come by and see me.
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You have to fix this before I can give you a mark, so fix this asap and then let me know that it’s done as we have only 2 days left! 😉 Thanks!!
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You have added the works cited at the end of your paper, but you have missed the integral in-text citation. I told you about this and you said that you understood. In the body of your text, “in-text”, you have to cite where you found the information. You would need to write something like this:
According to Filmy Quotes, Raju’s mother says, “……………..”
or
Raju’s mother says, “…………” (Filmy Quotes).
We learned this in the first 2 weeks of this course, and you should have been doing this all along, James.
Remember: Citation is 2 parts– the Works Cited at the end of the essay + the in-text citation.
😉
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