3 Idiots: The Original Screenplay

Two friends embark on a quest for their lost buddy. On this journey, they encounter a long-forgotten bet, a wedding they must gate-crash and a funeral that goes impossibly out of control. As they make their way through the perilous landscape, another journey begins – their inner journey through memory lane and the story of their friend: the irrepressible free-thinker Rancho who in his unique way, touched and changed their lives. And then one day, suddenly, Rancho vanishes. Who was he? Where did he come from? Why did he leave?… Finally, in the misty mountains of unparalleled beauty, the friends find the key to the secret.

3 Idiots is a comedy of ideas as provocative as it is funny, as wildly entertaining as it is insightful – a laugh riot that talks about the most important of human pursuits: self-actualisation.

It is a beautiful paradox that 3 Idiots, a film with an utterly modern and youthful sensibility, evoked at its release a bygone era, when cinema tickets were hard to obtain for weeks – a phenomenon unheard of in the era of multiplexes, digital piracy and cable television. The film proved to be an irresistible magnet around the world: in small towns, the lines for its tickets created traffic jams. In metros, theatre owners had to start a separate queue for the tickets of all other films, so their patrons would not have to endure hours of wait. In faraway Michigan, a cinema manager was compelled to request some 300 enthusiasts to vacate the cinema, finding them so stirred by 3 Idiots that they were partying and dancing in the foyer long after the film was over.

However, the film's real and abiding achievement is not in its popularity, but in its power to provoke. Millions of young people of India have found heart from the film's rousing call: follow your aptitude, work hard in your favoured field for excellence, and success will follow. It has obliged parents who impel their young in life's rat race ruthlessly to reflect upon their vision and action. Within a short span since its release, the film has induced so many changes of hearts and career paths that India's youth of the second decade of the 21st century is rightly being labelled as the 3 Idiots-generation.

3 Idiots: The Original Screenplay takes you right to the heart of the matter through rare interviews, exclusive behind- the- scenes photographs and insightful first-person accounts. The book unveils the journey of the personal philosophy of its makers, compelling a nation to think.