Mumbai, January 15: Creating the most successful film in Bollywood history should, surely, be an excuse for breaking into song — preferably backed by a troupe of sari-swirling dancers. Instead, the achievement has spawned an ugly row between India’s most successful author, one of its most powerful movie moguls and its most bankable leading man.
3 Idiots, which was released on Christmas Day, is based on Five Point Someone, a book by Chetan Bhagat, whose depictions of India’s outsourcing generation have made him one of the world’s most widely read writers.
The film, a satire of the country’s university system, has taken £41 million in 18 days, becoming the highestearning Indian film to date. A strong performance overseas — it is also the first Hindi film to earn more than $5 million at American theatres — has bolstered hopes that Bollywood, dwarfed commercially by Hollywood, may finally be on its way to achieving success in the West.
Back on the sub-continent, however, the film’s success has been overshadowed by allegations of double dealing and backstabbing among its creators. Bhagat has alleged that the film-makers have sought to hide the fact that the movie is based on his work.
He reacted furiously after he learnt that the storyline was credited in the opening titles to Abhijat Joshi, a scriptwriter, and Rajkumar Hirani, the director. The promotional campaign gives the author no mention and statements released to publicise the film’s success have failed to give him any credit.
“The setting, characters, plotline, dramatic twists and turns, one-liners, theme, message — almost all aspects that make up the story are from [my book],” he said on his blog.
His ire has been directed at Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the film’s producer, and Aamir Khan, the star. The author, whose name appears only fleetingly in the closing credits, said: “For the past two years I have trusted Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Aamir blindly and this is what I get in return.”
Chopra, one of Bollywood’s most powerful men, denied short-changing the novelist — although he made the denial during an angry outburst, for which he later apologised. “I was shocked to see myself on TV screaming like a maniac,” he said.
Disputes over writing credits are not new in Bollywood. Directors lament privately that money is showered on actors rather than writers — a situation that they say helps to explain the rampant plagiarism of Hollywood plots. The latest spat may ultimately prove self-serving. Bhagat has appealed to audiences to read his book and see the film to decide whether he has been cheated.
He has been dubbed “the biggest-selling writer in English you’ve never heard of” — a reference to how he has been dismissed by the global literati, despite selling more than 2.5 million books since 2006. His latest work, Two States, is selling a copy every 20 seconds — not bad for a 36-year-old former Goldman Sachs banker who says that he started writing during office hours five years ago to take revenge on a boss he disliked.
It remains to be seen whether 3 Idiots will have the staying power of past Bollywood hits; most notably the 1970s action film Sholay, which ran for more than a decade in some Indian cinemas.
Indeed, there is the prospect of 3 Idiots being overtaken as soon as next month, when the next film by Shahrukh Khan, another Bollywood superstar, is released.
At least there will not be any confusion over who should get the credit with that one: it is called My Name is Khan.
—Agencies