In a new report by IMDB, Raj Kumar Hirani’s 3 Idiots, released in 2009, has been voted the most influential Indian film of this millennium.
The blockbuster film starred Aamir Khan, Madhavan, Sharman Joshi and Omi Vaidya as college chums travelling down the road of life. What made the journey look so appealing on screen was the mismatched aspirations of the four friends, as though they all aspired to achieve goals too far-flung to make the friends… well, friends. That’s what made the chemistry so exciting.
Madhavan who played Farhan Qureshi, a student with a passion for photography who pursues engineering to please his father, remembers the film with extreme fondness. “Gosh, the most influential Indian film of this century?! Wow!! It is deeply flattering and an honour indeed. I am so happy to be in two films that have made lasting impact on the audience: Rang De Basanti and 3 Idiots.”
Madhavan remembers shooting for 3 Idiots with an injured knee. “During the entire shooting I was wearing a protection bandage. Just days before the shooting was to start I got torn a ligament while playing badminton with Prakash Padukone. Luckily for me, Raju Hirani didn’t drop me. Instead he wrote the injured knee and protection bandage into the script.”
Incidentally the inspiration to play badminton to stay fit—they were playing college students at 40-plus in 3 Idiots—came to Madhavan from his co-star Aamir Khan for whom he is full of praise . “It was a pleasure working with Aamir. Such a healthy atmosphere during the shooting, we never knew when the shooting started and when it ended. It is so important to have co-stars who don’t think about only their own performance while creating something special, like 3 Idiots.”
