After a mediocre year at the box office, Bollywood has finally begun to breathe a sigh of relief with the smash success of 3 Idiots, which is seems set to be one of the biggest releases of all time, but not everyone is cheering the film. Author Chetan Bhagat is upset with filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra for downplaying similarities to his book “5 Point Someone.”
Before the film was released, the cast and production team had been very careful to say that the film was only ‘loosley based’ on “5 Point Someone.” Even the day before the film was released, Sharman Joshi told the IANS that, “There are only a few points from the book in the film. Otherwise it’s a totally different screenplay and story…it is very important for people to know that it’s not the book they are going to go out and see.”
Chetan Bhagat responded to these allegations with a statement: “Yes, clearly, the makers of the film have been unfair and thousands of my readers have been saying so. I am aware of this, and this is not an issue that has ‘just come up’. I’ve been grappling with it for two years, but kept silent about it. The only reason it has surfaced after the movie’s release is because “Five Point Someone” has a few million readers, and when you copy a popular story claiming it as ‘original’ and ‘completely different’, people are going to find out. People did, and so did a lot of media journalists.”
Aamir Khan responded, “I met Chetan when I was shooting here, and I told him I have not read your book. He said don’t bother, the script is different. This he told me some eight months back and if he is saying something else then that reflects on him. Not on Raju or Vidhu Vinod Chopra.”
Vidhu Vinod Chopra is now accusing Chetan of being fame hungry but he stands by his moral outrage, “Some people have told me that I should keep silent. I did try to be silent but didn’t work. Also, people say this is how Bollywood works. Sorry, I disagree. Not all Bollywood works like this. There are a lot of good people too. And every event like this helps change things for the better. And that is what I am all about anyway.”
