So, I finally stopped being another of the fast-diminishing group of idiots who haven't watched 3 Idiots, the film that has shattered all box office records till date (and to be frank to the movie, rightly so). The reviews I received before the movie were all exceptional, and I had made up my mind that this movie I must catch in a cinema hall, and more so because it talked about something that I felt that I had perfected in my own little way, as have many other people - how to handle education.The movie was cinematically breath-taking, probably the finest movie I have ever seen, more so because it could make you empathise with such funny situations and absurd expressions (like the deep empathy, mixed with laughter, for Raju Rastogi's family). Of course, too many liberties were taken, especially the last delivery scene and the entire "All Izz Well" jingle could well have been toned down, if not removed entirely. Yet, the idea of this post is not to act like another of those wannabe film - critics. What I shall focus on is the idea of education as set out in the movie.
The movie first talks about dichotomising between success and excellence. Commendable. Yet, I feel tempted to add that success is, unfortunately, a barometer of excellence. How do you define excellence? How do you measure it? Success. This dichotomy would have stood had it been between satisfaction and success, or for that matter personal enrichment versus success. But as a trade-off between success and excellence, I feel it clearly falls, mostly because these two terms are so fluid that they can't be put into strict boundaries and compared. The idea of success is transient, and very personal too. For a lot of people, I might be a successful boy (being the Delhi CBSE topper), but for me success is something that people like Shloka Joshi (national swimmer, trained dancer, part-time musician) are. I feel myself totally dwarfed by them. Yet, for the common public, I would probably be the greater success. Are we both epitomising excellence? Shloka does, she's touching the pinnacle of what she does. I don't, clearly - because my net innovation factor in life tends to zero. But I do have a lot of fun in life, I do my own things - but I don't "excel" in them or even feel the need to excel. So, the film fails in this department.
Now, what I really had a problem with, as far as the movie was concerned, was the feel-good "victory" of Aamir Khan over Omi at the end. Why did Aamir Khan have to become Phunsuk Wangde at the end for the writers to prove that he was the more successful man in life? Couldn't he be just another primary school teacher, as long as he was happy with his job and more satisfied than the MNC-employed Omi? In the end, the movie defeated a lot of its purpose, by equating the "victory" to success in life, to Omi having to run behind Aamir Khan. Hindi movies need not always have the "happiest" ending, they can also have "relatively less happy" endings too.
The movie, to sum it up, showed the battle of extremes, between the carefree-but-intelligent Aamir Khan, the poor-and-God-fearing Sharman Joshi, the lost-in-the-jungle Madhavan and the hitler-cum-director Boman Irani, and to that extent it did justice to what it was meant to be. But it was too far-fetched as a film to be taken as a serious guide to the education system's ills. Yet, I do give it out to the film-makers for at least having raised issues, tending very close to what really ought to be raised. This is a beautiful time for public debate and discussion over how education is being carried out.
What is my take on India's education system? It doesn't stifle talent, or it hasn't done so in my case (for my pursuit of debating and quizzing, that is). Yes, it does nothing at all to encourage it, and if this is ground enough for reform, reform must come. But in the race to make it easier and less stressful for the students (like in the case of the Semester System in Delhi University), it must be ensured that the quality of education is not diluted.
Actually if you ask me, I disagree with the very concept of examinations. I prefer being tested in assignments and projects, that have liberal deadlines and no fixed word limits. I prefer to be tested on innovation and creativity in a particular subject rather than an ability to apply concepts to fixed questions. Unrealistic? Maybe in India as a whole. But at least in the premier institutions, like the one in which I currently am in, this could be done. Rather, if this is not done here, how does this institution remain a "premier" institution? And so it stands for the IITs too. Why not just get rid of exams, and have projects instead? The most beautiful assignment I did in my life was to use trigonometry to calculate the area of the state of Tamil Nadu, given the distance between Pondicherry and Madras. I want to do such things again, but what better than do that to score marks instead of sitting in an examination hall for two-three hours and just writing on sheets?
