Before I start, let me declare for the record that I am fan of Chetan Bhagat. I liked his first two books, though though the third one was a piece of …well you get the picture, but apart from that I ike him. So my views here are independant of my liking for either Chetan or Aamir Khan, they are purely objective.

Those who don’t know why I wrote that Disclaimer, please read this wikipedia article on the 3 idiots controversy. Now I am not saying the movie wasn’t inspired by the book. It was, more than 2-5% but not enough to say that the book was a screenplay. Let’s get to that first.

Points of Differences

1. The theme: 5.someone is based on the lives of IITians, the most elite institution, and how the most elite institution is not the most comfortable one. IItians would disagree, but this ain’t about you. So the basic theme is diffrerent. This one is about how the established system and norms aren’t always the best.

2. The Subtler differences: Well there are hundreds of subtle differences even between the parts adapted from the book and the original book. Like the key being willingly given by the daughter, rather than being stolen. The main trouble making character, Rancho in the movie, Ryan in the book are a lot different from each other. Rancho is an identity thief, Ryan a rich bastard. Ryan ends up with a job lesser than his fellow Chuddy-buddies, Rancho is one helluva lot richer.

3 idiots is about chasing your own dreams fearlessly, FPS is more about defiance.

Having said that, you already know how different they are, if you’ve seen the movie, so let’s skip that part. My point is they are very different, the storyline has traces of similarity here and there but overall, even if you’ve read the book, you cannot predict the story and vice versa. Now Aamir gave Chetan credit. If I read the contract correctly, he was supposed to be given a name in the rolling credit, he was. I also assume the monetary formalities were taken care of, otherwise there’d be a whole lot different issue and Chetan would file for theft/fraud/ any of the million things.

So the legal contract was fulfilled. As for the moral ground. Let me tell you the story as I see it and as Chetan would probably want us to think about it.

Aamir’s writer comes to chetan and says heya fella, we are making a movie out of your book. Chetan smiles in delight and says “Ya cool, let’s talk money”. Writers say we’ll send our lawyer. Lawyer comes says “We give you a lac bucks for chai-pani now and 10 lac, after the movie is released.” Chetan says “Ya cool, but give me some sunshine” Lawyer says “Your name will be in the rolling credit” Chetan says “Oh Goody, thank you. Have some chai in our humble house” Lawyer says “No thank you, I cannot accept anything from you that might be considered a bribe in any way”. Lawyer hence goes(Ya that part was how lawyer would react if he knew what he’d have to do later). Movie goes into production, and all. All the time Chetan doesn’t consider it necessary to check the script, which he has a right too, and doesn’t file for a stay order, if he had read the script, on noticing that the movie is adapted quite a lot. So the movie is released and then Buhuhu Chetan says “Aamir stole my booksie.”, goes to his wife, who welcomes him with a warm hugsy. Chetan gets over is tears and goes to Aamir. Aamir says “Chetan, I am the Koyal’s egg, you are the crows egg, you are broken”. Chetan says “I want to be in the nest”, Aamir says “No, you are broken egg”

Okay so that story wasn’t very realistic, but translating it to a more sensible version you will see there are big flaws. I mean for God’s sake Chetan is the writer of 2 best-selling and one bullshit book. He is smart. You expect me to beleive he never read the book. Infact, I may be wrong but isn’t he supposed to consent to the release of the movie.

He didn’t mind then, but now he sees that he could have extacted more money so how about break Aamir’s eggs. So you see the flaws in the story. Chetan is actually just looking for money. Maybe he has a strong case, but Aamir was never wrong. He promised credits, he gave credit. Chetan could hae stopped the release of the movie at any time, but did he? No he waited until he was sure the movie was good, and then attacked. So who is right?

Even