Can We Tolerate a PADOSAN?

Its a Sunday - a lazy beginning to the routine.I just played some old music to add to the lazy mood and the evergreen songs of Padosan were filling the quietness of my apartment.The thoughts went back to the movie and how the magic of some movies fails to diminish with time.They have the diamond touch....time just makes it more priceless.
Also,I was led to think if the same movie could have stood the test of current times.A movie which has got all the ingredients for success - humour,entertainment,nice music - would surely have got lots of brickbats if its release happened in 2010.A pig tailed south indian,played by a muslim Mehmood, would have not been allowed to get accolades and laughs ........in fact nothing that the movie has gained would have been possible.The magic would be lost in discussions at the Big Fights and Face the Nation shows of the so called premier news channels of the country.There would be media frenzy and the tamil political force would be all over the press and tv baring their fangs at the movie which makes a "mockery" of the dravidian culture .......the actor would be slapped with a number of cases against him from hurting religious sentiments to being anti national and would be running for cover trying to escape it all giving interviews and issuing public statements of apology.There would be widespread demonstration for stopping the movie.....time and public property would be damaged in bringing down the cinema halls and loads of sms campaigns would be trying to make a quick buck asking people to sms silly yes or no answers (as if it would solve the problem!!) about the the insensitivity of the moviemaker or something like that.No doubt the movie would have made a good deal of money with all the controversy and the producer would surely have had the last laugh but the sole purpose for which Padosan was made would be lost.......there would be no joy or entertainment.......just charred remains of hurt, anger and dissent would be left for discussion.

This is the new us......an intolerant human force....which like the 6 blind men trying to imagine each part of the elephant's body as per their imagination never managed to appreciate the beauty of the elephant.....we just keep reading between the lines and never try to understand what is really being said!
The makers of Padosan were just lucky not to have the current crop of mean politicians and the likes of Raj Thakerey as their padosi (neighbours) or else a gem in the collection of classic movies would not have retained its sheen and lustre!

ABOUT 3 MORE IDIOTS...

First of all, a very happy new year to all..Don't know if happiness is so easy to usher in by just changing the year but then it is a thought and practice carried out for so long and carries a positive vibe, worthy of being spread and passed on.
I had my family with me for the holidays and it surely brought a lot of joy and happiness meeting each other after a gap of 4 long months......especially for my little darling daughter,who I feel ,is unknowingly sacrificing the most in this decision of mine to take up the job at Port Blair.The worst thing about the holidays is that they end and make life more tough because you have just started romancing and getting to love it more and more when it suddenly moves away.So, my wife and kid moved back to their routine last Sunday and I returned to mine.......and just to keep that smile on my face stuck for some time more, I got a pirated dvd of "3 idiots" to watch; instead of cursing the time for passing by so early.
The movie is no doubt good and very enjoyable which every person who has led a life in hostel would surely associate with.I could draw a lot of parallels with my life in the medical college hostel where I spent almost 8 years of my life.I just got transported to the year 1993 when four words on a piece of telegram changed my life forever.It said : Selected for MBBS course.......
After the initial joy and partying,I remember moving out on 27th July,1993 from Pune with my father to join the course.We reached the college after a long and tiring journey and though I was nervous and scared like a wet cat to enter into the new world of being alone and catering for myself,I was nevertheless determined to go through it.After getting over with some paperwork, I was asked to undergo the medical examination which was being conducted in the physiology lab.And there, I saw a glimpse of my batchmates who would get embedded in my memory later as the guys who came as boys and girls and walked off the same college with a prefix to their name : DOCTOR- one word which carries a lot of trust and hope for every human on this earth.

My first medical check was quite a disaster.Don't know why, but my blood was under too much pressure and shooting and the doc who examined me checked twice and then asked me to rest and not to get tensed as this was a routine affair.Fortunately, the blood stopped being a cooker and the pressure came under control in some time.The next check really caught me off pants.........the surgeon wanted me to bare my nuts, a routine test done to check for conditions like hydrocoele and hernias which I learned later...but at that point of time, it was something shameful for me.......I was caught unawares but I had no option but to let my genitals get molested by the surgeon :(
And there as I was zipping myself feeling like a rape victim,I met the first idiot of my story.....Pravin Salunke,Salu for short......... jeans,shirt,finger combing his hair and acting more like a bollywood wannabe than a wannabe doctor......I moved on...The torture soon ended and the check ups were over and I was finally admitted as a first year doc to be....a dream come true..
We entered the hostel after 15 days of "Orientation" (a silly idea of the college authorities to make the new kids on the block stay in an ashram and get to know the Gandhian way of living.....surely  an extended party for all the fuchchas) We never learned anything Gandhian but had loads of fun in his name and got to know each other a bit better.
As we got our bags ready, we all felt like a chick coming out of the egg shell with no idea of what lay ahead .It was more scary than I had imagined and as the bus dropped us at the entrance of the hostel,I had  a feeling of getting caught by the enemies as prisoner of war. And the same was the feeling felt by all the guys with me........some more and some less but nevertheless all shaking in their pants.Myself and the Shahrukh look alike Pravin turned out to be neighbours and all we could do was sit in the room and wait for the clock to tick till it was finally time for dinner.Like slaves in a prison,we formed a queue and started with our first ragging act of banging our plates with the spoon all the way to the mess.We had also shaved our mouchtaches and the third button on our shirt was red, as instructed by the ragging inc.

We were then in for a long haul of ragging, some pleasant and some  not "decent" enough to be mentioned here, but enjoyable nonetheless.As the time passed, the ragging became fun and we started gelling with the seniors and batchmates alike.We jumped like frogs all over the hostel rooftops,had midnight campfires on the rooftops to celebrate birthdays and gave birthday bumps throughout the night while the intricate biochemistry charts and scary anatomy books waited for us to come and give them their due respect.It was a party never willing to end.
And the anatomy class brought in the forefront another idiot of my story...Vikrant Pulliwar,Pulli for short......a lean,fairly tall, spectacled dude who no matter what the time of the day had to keep his hairstyle intact and would spare no effort to do so. Anatomy was like taught to him in the womb....he could tell all the attachments of the muscles and the course of the arteries as if he were inside the body and tracing their path! And there was one more thing which he was known for ..........his STINKING SOCKS! In dearth of any anasthetic agent,they were surely "ram baan" to make a person faint! No exageration there....
Study wasn't easy.....seeing the body with which we were born, in a totally different perspective and learning the art of being a healer from a sufferer took around 5 years of our life.But what kept the wit,smiles and joys alive all this time was the friendship and pranks we 3 idiots had together.We hailed from Nagpur, Bombay and Delhi and once,for the holidays, we just planned to visit each other's house together and see the places too.We shopped at fashion street in Bombay and managed to convince the hunk among the 3 of us....Salu... to buy a short tight T shirt and make him get into that in the sulabh shauchalaya  to flaunt his muscles on the street.When we reached home and his sister saw him in the attire,she burst into splits of laughter and then she educated us that we had landed up buying an undersized female top for our muscle man which he flaunted all over Mumbai........We even have a picture of him in that........

Time has passed and we are now in different streams - Pravin is a Neurosurgeon, Pulli is an Orthopaedic Surgeon and well I became and Otolaryngologist (ENT Surgeon).But the smiles and fun have never failed to cross our faces when we reflect on the past...........thanks to the 3 IDIOTS ........3 more idiots have managed to relive their past!