04 December,2009 10:58 AM IST | | Janhavi Samant
Just a couple of days of some laboratory work and mixing left on his soon-to-release Three Idiots and then Rajkumar Hirani's free to return to unemployment.
For now, the director answers some quick questions before attending to a hazaar finishing touches to his film, a friend who's just been hospitalised and attending another media interview.u00a0
Are you nervous now? Are there a lot of expectations after Munnabhai?
Not really. I have never had to worry about expectations. I don't mean it in overconfidence but I know that I have made the film that I stepped out to make and one that I had a lot of fun making. So it's okay. Lot of people expect me to do something similar to Munnabhai.
And it is similar in its genre; Three Idiots is also a story told from the heart, a totally feel-good film. But it is also very very different in that the story, the characters are vastly dissimilar.u00a0
Both the Munnabhai films had a message. Do you think that every film should carry a deeper message?
Not at all. Everyone should be free to make the kind of film he or she wants to make. But yes, I like to make films that leave the audiences enriched in some way.
I like to work with subjects I feel strongly about. Three Idiots will talk about the pressure and competitiveness in our education system. But the film's funny at the same time. It focuses on life in a hostel.
Have you ever lived in a hostel? Was it competitive?
Yes of course. I studied in a 22-acre campus for three years when I studied filmmaking at the FTII, Pune. It was the most fantastic personality transforming experience of my life. We'd just get up, watch films, discuss films, debate over them; we'd rarely go out of campus.
In fact it was a standing joke that if we stepped out of the institute gates, we'd get run over by some car because we were so not used to the outside world. We'd pick up a camera, shoot something, make films.
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That's the only time we made films without any commercial compulsions. We made cinema for the purpose of cinema. It was wonderful and idyllic.
There was a lot of competition to get in, but once we'd got in, we were free to do as we wished. I think our education system should leave students free to choose the courses they want, that way they can focus on the learning instead of the competition to just get into institutions.
