Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T22:33:18.083Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

24 - “Coming to a Multiplex Near You”: Indian Fiction in English and New Bollywood Cinema

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2015

Sangita Gopal
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
Ulka Anjaria
Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
Get access

Summary

The story of the adaptation of Chetan Bhagat's best-selling 2004 debut, Five Point Someone, into the blockbuster Bollywood film 3 Idiots (dir. Rajkumar Hirani, 2009) is an interesting one. While most discussions around an adaptation stress how different the film is from the book, Bhagat and his fans stress how similar the two properties are, insisting that perhaps the author should have received greater prominence in the film's credits and promotion than he did. Bollywood has a long history of borrowing (to be generous) plots and ideas from other (especially Hollywood) films, but the case of 3 Idiots is not one of intellectual property, as both parties agree that no legal injury has been done to the author. The film's producer, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, director, Rajkumar Hirani, and star, Aamir Khan, have averred that although Bhagat had been given his due, he was generating controversy in order to cash in on the film's success. Bhagat and his supporters agree in a sense by suggesting that his claims are moral rather than legal. Given how closely the film resembles the novel – down to such details as the red Maruti 800 car featured in several scenes – Bhagat's supporters stress that the author of the bestselling novel on which 3 Idiots is based should have received a little more airtime in the media blitz that preceded and followed the release of the film. They repeatedly contrast Bhagat's shoddy treatment at the hands of a Bollywood producer to that of Vikas Swarup, on whose novel Q&A (2005) the international hit Slumdog Millionaire (dir. Danny Boyle, 2008) was based. While Swarup was front and center at all events celebrating the film's phenomenal success, including at the Oscars, Bhagat's name appeared just once in the credits for 3 Idiots and that too at a very low billing!

For an English-language novelist such as Bhagat to desire a closer association with a blockbuster Hindi film such as 3 Idiots is indeed noteworthy if we consider the cultural dynamics that have historically kept the Indian novel in English at a great remove from the Hindi popular cinema.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×