THE WISDOM OF IDIOTS: Film Review
Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?... T.S. Eliot
These famous lines of T.S. Eliot form the thematic concern of both the contemporary political milieu, wherein there are moves of making class X board exams optional, as well as the popular culture as depicted in the recent Amir Khan starrer 3 Idiots reflecting death of Humanism in the competition driven production of knowledge in Indian Universities. Undoubtedly, the object of these benign endeavors is appreciable as it seeks to eliminate the mimetic spirit and lack of individuality from the present educational system. However, both the attempts still await the accomplishments they seek to attain. The move of taking away board exams has already given rise to concerns that the school authorities with the power-access are making the gradation or internal assessment system equally, if not more, stressful and competitive as the system of board examinations. Rajkumar Hirani’s 3 Idiots, which has got a great opening, follows a similar trend. The movie which depicts the iconoclastic protagonist having a queer and rebellious way to conceptualize education forms the gang of idiots along with his other two college inmates as they do not follow the traditional path which preaches cut-throat competition and the rat-race rationality. However, in their idiocy they illuminate extraordinary wisdom which the others (so called 'wise people') have lost in gathering knowledge through information. The movie follows the classic literary wisdom that in a society which has gone mad only an idiot or madman of the society reflects sanity! In their heretic insanity they illustrate an extraordinary sanity absent clearly in the “intelligent” Others.
However, the movie, in my view, ultimately fell within the same trap it seeks to relentlessly question and expose. Eventually, the three idiots in the film obtain success in their respective fields. The problem is that in order to prove their worth to themselves and to the world at large they have to “succeed” in the traditional sense only. The final moments of the movie almost reinstate all the structures it seemingly explodes and questions. The climax saves the protagonist from being mocked at by the old rival, who followed the orthodox path, only as he is more “successful” than his rival. The more important part is that here "success" is also understood as in the terms of the competitive rat-race following rival. Thus, the ultimate victory remains the“success” of the protagonist and that too in the eyes of what French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan would call the Big Other [the unknown other to whom we want to prove ourselves]. So Aamir Khan to be successful has to earn more money than his rival. That is where the movie incorporates the same logic which it vehemently opposes throughout. This way of falling in the trap is not an isolated case in Aamir Khan's otherwise radical films. The previous Amair Khan blockbuster Taare Zameen Par also endorses the logic of ‘structural adjustment’ in the same way by proclaiming that the differently abled child has to accomplish the number one position in order to be appreciated by the society at large. The protagonist can never be shown as a Vincent Van Gough who, could not get appreciation in his lifetime, defied the logic of worldly success as he remained content in his failure too. His posthumous appreciation proved, in true sense, that competence and talent reign much above “success”. In other words, the hero could have been a 'hero' and successful in spite of being a small school teacher but more human in his outlook for life than his rival who, as shown in the movie, is so devoid of humanity that a photograph where others see his wife (a human being) he can only focus on the big bungalow behind her! Would this not have been a truly radical and new way, though idealistic (but the movie is idealistic too), to re-define success for our hyper-globalizing society?
However, the final structural adjustment in no way undermines the major theme of radical change in educational system permeated throughout the movie and the fantastic manner in which the film is made. This trend to seek change in the existing structures of educational system, both at the political level as well as in the domain of popular culture, is reflective of the deep desire in the social psyche for an alchemical transformation of the educational system and base it on more human values, human love and human friendship. What is still desired is to find out a proper ending for such benign aspiration both in the movie as well as in life. We still remain arrested by corporate values, corporate friendship and may I say corporate love. So to borrow the Shakespearean wisdom we may say that ‘All is Well’ with the movie but it not necessarily Ends Well!
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