The Importance of Being Rancho

So I saw 3 Idiots.

Mostly I learnt that men cry, hug and piss at the drop of a trouser. Shall we see how all this unfolded? !

A plane returns to base because Farhan (Madhavan, once so cute but now needs to go a little easy on the thair shaadam eh!), is having a fake spasm of sorts. Soon he has hijacked an airport car and is on his way to meet best bud Raju (Sharman Joshi). The reason for all this is that much hated Chatur Ramalingam (Omi Vaidya) has located the other best bud, Rancchoddas Shamaldas Chanchad aka Rancho (Aamir Khan) who disappeared after graduation. Question Time! What’s common to Tams in Bollywood Films and Brits in Hollywood Films? Answer: Both sport dodgy accents and are designated DOUCHEBAGS! Chatur it appears has been harbouring deep RESENTMENT against the best buds. And is also looking for an inventor called Phansukh Wangdu (people lol, rofl, lmao at the names!), all round genius who has 400 patents to his name (your viewer was all lolwut at patents=genius!). So they are off to Simla where Rancho now lives. Why is Chatur so bitter? FLASHBACK! Time for a Boys Own Adventure where their antics will be treated with a Boys will be Fucking Boys!!

Podgy Farhan has just joined the Imperial College of Engineering and is soon rooming with Raju, he of the 100 Gods Shrine who shall bless him with Complete Examination Success. Time for RAGGING! Lots and lots of boys! Lots and lots of dropped trousers! Arse Stamping! Chatur in a bowtie and skimpy underwear! Everyone looking like an undercover overage student like Drew in Never Been Kissed! Rancho entering, Farhan looking a little smitten - Ruined Botticelli Angel who has been a tad “refreshed” – IRRESISTIBLE! But if you think up next is strobe lights, dance music, Bad Bad Rancho and Queer as Log you are wrong for this is at best a bad advertisement for Dora Underwear. Rancho doesn’t want to drop his trousers – no Tough Male Initiation Rites for the wuss! - and locks himself into a room. Time for a Bully aka Senior to ferret him out by - umm - pissing on his door. Time for a glimpse of Rancho’s native genius for he quickly rigs – double umm - an Apparatus for a Sharp Short Shock to the Scrotum of a Pissing Person! Useful given the movie has so much serial pissing!! So massive toolery all around – except perhaps in the underwear.

ViruS (Boman Irani) - he of the charming eccentricities – Listening to opera! Being shaved while listening to the opera! Taking ambidexterity to new heights! Carrying a bird in a nest! – is giving the TOUGH TALK to the overage students. And mooning over a pen designed for space. Cue a Rancho The Great moment (Reader, you are warned, there are MANY!). It is all about a pencil for space – Rancho boy you will have to do better than lifting old cosmonaut/astronaut anecdotes to establish genius!! Now ViruS his enemy for life but hey ViruS join the queue, we can’t stand a smug smart arse either! Also joining the queue - the Prof in the next scene who is – triple umm - predictably unzipping his trousers! Another Rancho the Great moment - don’t beat us over the head with his genius, folks! And I forget - there is a parallel track of Chatur, Obnoxious Teacher's Pet for each such moment.  

Now time for obligatory creative student crushed by the forces of college bit for beware ViruS the Villain is at large, he will fuck you over, destroy all hope, crush your spirit and spit you out a ghost of a man! Oh note that the student is a Lobo so he gets to sing an English song! Also another song where the bogs are like something out a product catalogue – check out the red doors, the smooth granite! Soon Lobo is quite DEAD and hey a Rancho invention is there to record the moment! And Rancho has a most revolutionary thought – all student suicides are MURDERS! The blood of our nation’s youth is on our Professors hands! For this ViruS puts him on the spot and time for another Rancho The Great moment accompanied by a homily - though oy any dimwit can spot what Farhanitrate and Prerajulisation is! Also time for ViruS’ favourite activity – writing letters to parents! Farhan’s are the aspirational sort, Raju’s the poor wanting a better life. And both are very UNHAPPY so the 3 idiots are soon cruising the streets. So of course time for the Boys will be Fucking Boys to crash a wedding. Oh look ViruS has a daughter Pia (Kareena Kapoor). She has spectacles, she is INTELLIGENT! But has a fiancé who is very very devoted to BRANDS! Hot Chick with Douchebag or Closeted with Beard? The Jury is OUT!

Soon ViruS is giving Raju and Farhan a valuable piece of advice – they are have nots while Rancho is a HAVE! So he can do ANY fuckery he wishes! The life of the genteel poor on the other hand, fucked but no fuckery allowed! Soon all pants down for a discussion and Raju in open rebellion against Rancho and rooming with Chatur. But Farhan still smitten, the man does adore a ruined Botticelli angel!

Anyway Boys will be Fucked up Boys! So a plan is hatched up to “rescue” Raju from Chatur’s clutches. This involves a tiny switch in Chatur’s speech for an Important Occasion. Sort of like putting a spider in a classmate’s desk in Std. 5 when the School Inspector comes visiting. Clever! Also Chatur not knowing Hindi – both HILARIOUS and a CRIME – we must all be proficient in the Rashtra Bhasha! The word in question in India’s Most Famous Speech after Kitne Aadmi The is balatkar. The Rape Word – guaranteed laugh riot! Naturally Chatur all stroppy and vows REVENGE! Oooh FISTFIGHT!!! But no, just drunk people promising to be successes 10 years later. An Apparatus for a Sharp Short Shock to the Plot badly needed!

But we commence a Romance Fuckery Plot in which Rancho manages to divest Pia of the Brand Whore Douchebag/Closeted Fiance and get it on with him instead. Does anyone care about this unsexy romance? NO! Can we have a Time Travelling Device back to 50s Sluttery?! NOW! But halt. We must not forget the mission of this film, to establish that Rancho aka Aamir Khan is Great and Can Do No Wrong! Weird hospital track (hey nice Fortis product placement there, brand whoredom much!) involving Raju’s father. Raju also smitten by the ruined Botticelli angel so he CRIES (Sam Taylor-Wood, you are needed!) and HUGS Rancho.

Your viewer is now suffering from infinite tedium. Also never has a movie stuffed itself with SO MANY unsexy men. That’s it! I am wandering off on my very own Sapphic fantasy track! Indulge me till I return!

Exam results out - Quelle Surprise! Raju and Farhan bottom of class, Rancho a topper! Green Monster! Class Photograph! A Bet! If Raju and Farhan get a job, ViruS will shave off his moustache. Not that we care, a moustache less ham is still a ham! Plus the only good ham is Jon Hamm!

TEDIUM REIGNS. Also the back and forth now very confusing. Sapphic fantasies aren’t helping. Neither is Mr. Hamm. Time to keep company with Tall, Dark and Handsome Mr. Pinot Noir methinks and to hell with the chronology.

Back in the present our boys are in Simla (And a man is snapping 5 burqa ladies, wtf what was that about?!) and at Rancho’s mansion. Rancho’s dad is dead, also Rancho is not Rancho. Sooper Plot Twist, machan!

Some absurd fuckery, cuntery, sluttery, drunkery (God I feel SO much better just using those words!) ends in a dare (Boys will be Fucking Boys!). Rancho is trying to get into Pia’s bedroom, also some very strange stuff with a sister and a baby and all is well! OK, PISSING alert, this time its Raju spraying ViruS’ Wall! Time for ViruS’s second favourite thing after writing letters to parents! RUSTICATION! Out sails Raju though ViruS’ window to the strains of opera. Oh Raju, you really shouldn’t have done that!!!! For now we have to sit through more weird hospital scenes and CRYING and HUGGING and Rancho The Great.

Oh good here’s Mr. Shiraz, a super smooth sort from South Australia - only a ménage a trois will get me though this!

There is some bit about Farhan becoming a wildlife photographer and talking to his dad about it and TEARS! And Raju getting a job in spite of failing so more TEARS! ViruS now without a moustache. CRY, CRY, CRY! HUG, HUG, HUG! DROP TROUSERS! Rancho Tussi Great Ho!

Some backstory fuckery in which the fake Rancho is established as a boy prodigy and genius who would put Mozart to shame. Nothing to see here, move along.

Ongoing ViruS Villainy involving an exam paper and its theft. Does anyone care! A thousand times, a resounding NO! ViruS also “murdered” his son apparently. Boo Hoo.

Oh God no, ViruS don’t let us down, we could have so got together and given Rancho the bumps and tied the fucktard up, put stones in his pockets and thrown him into a river for good! But Sad Sad Day - here he is acknowledging Rancho The Great. This involves floods, the birth of a baby and a vacuum pump. All like some ghastly chapter in a management text book with big signposts to instances of ingenuity, teamwork, blah blah blah. All topped with CRYING. Will this child who shall hear the story of Uncle Rancho's Method for Delivering a Baby every single fucking day of his life be an Anti-Rancho? One lives in hope!

Anyhow back in the present, inexplicably Pia is getting married to the Brand Whore. Who is wearing a pink robe and pink slippers. And listening to Opera. Douchebag AND Closeted! Quelle Surprise! Pia does a runner.

Then we are all in Ladakh where we get further proof of Rancho the School Teacher’s ingenuity bringing joy and progress to poor Ladakhians (what the hell is the man inventing anyway, Permanently Keeping Cheese From Yak Milk?). So everyone gets to meet up because of the reappearance of both Pissing and the Apparatus for a Sharp Short Shock to the Scrotum of a Pissing Person and it winds its way to its predictable End. When I wake up I think- If 3 Idiots was male, I would definitely be applying that Apparatus to its Scrotum. PRONTO. Though  an old fashioned short, sharp kick to its backside would do just as well.

__*__

India’s most popular movie it appears is a mash up of 101 Jokes for all occasions, self-help books and a smattering of Edward de Bono. Its like being stuck in a training course for middle management where you are allowed to fondly recall the last time you were properly alive, aka in college, and made to believe that the rainbow of alternate existence in which you are totally going to be CREATIVE and LOVE your WORK is around the corner. It will no doubt be conducted by Rancho The Great.

If you stick to the very end, it will also make you Vote for Rote.