They Didn’t Give Me Any Credit for 3 Idiots

 This post  is contributed by our guest writer Jamshed V Rajan (also known as Jammy). 
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When Chetan Bhagat (this is how you spell the guy…right?) was crying fowl over credits…or the lack of it in 3 Idiots…I thought he was being a kid. Today I saw 3 idiots and I am very upset. I waited till all the credits had rolled and the guard asked me to leave….but “Our special thanks to Mr Jamshed V Rajan” never rolled out.
Here is why I expected thanks from Aamir and his company.

FlashBack
When I couldn’t even open my eyes, I was named Jamshed V Rajan. When I could barely say ‘ichh cdeam’ I was sent to kindergarten. When I couldn’t even tie my laces I was in class 1. And by the time I hadn’t even started liking girls, I was in the tenth standard (I was kind of a late starter).
The moment I stepped into Class Ten, World War 3 broke out in my house. My father wanted me to join the Indian Army and serve the nation but my mother wanted me to become a doctor and open up a once-a-week clinic in our village called Maangudi (Maan = Deer. Gudi = Abode).
 
When in 10th standard, Tom Clancy and Franklin W Dixon (who wrote Hardy Boys) were my role models and becoming a doctor or an Army man wasn’t in my plan. But my parents had plans laid out for me.
Mother: Why do you want my son to become an Army man like you? Aren’t you satisfied with what you have done to yourself?
Father: Why? What wrong did I do? And why should he become a doctor…to mint money? If patriotic people like us don’t send their kids to Army, who will?
Mother: I want him to do good for the people in our village. If he becomes an Armyman, at the most he will take a 60 day long leave and give the village’s watch man a break. But if he becomes a doctor, he can treat them every week.
Father: Do you understand watchmen and Armymen aren’t the same.
Mother: Well, if we Indians are one big family…can’t I say India is one big house. That makes the Armymen, security gaurds at the entrance. What say?
Father: If we fight….our son might end up doing something else. Why don’t we reach a compromise….how about pushing him to join Armed Forces Medical College? He can be a doctor and an Armyman too?
Mother: What about the weekly clinics at our village?
Father: He can settle down in our village after retirement and start a clinic. What say?
Mother: Deal.
Father: Deal. No more discussions. AFMC it is.
The next day, I was enrolled in Brilliant Tutorials’ 2-year Medical Coaching Program. Over the next two years I received a lot of communication (including study material) from them. Wake me up from my grave 50 years later and I will still be able to recite their address: 12, Masilamani Street, T. Nagar, Chennai 600 017.
I gave it my best but failed Armed Forces Medical College Entrance exam and also the All India Pre-Medical & Pre-Dental Exam.
Gosh…wasn’t I even good enough to pull teeth? Since I was responsible for the weekly cleaning of the toilet bowl….I believed I could have made a natural dentist. Ignore the stink, close your eyes to avoid the stark visuals and get on with the task at hand…I could do that easily.
Surprisingly, my parents didn’t mind my failing the exam much. They asked if I was comfortable enrolling in Brilliant Tutorials’ 1-year Medical Coaching Program and try the AFMC next year.
“Hmm…I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. I have got BA Economics & BA English in an Arts college….I would rather go ahead and study.”
My father didn’t seem happy with the thought but he didn’t show it. He said: “You have still got fifty years ahead of you and wasting one year shouldn’t be that big a problem.” My mother nodded.
Convincing me to do nothing is easy. So I stayed at home and study materials started coming in from 12, Masilamani Street, T. Nagar, Chennai 600 017.

One year later, nothing much had changed. I failed AFMC again – this year they only need 12 students to complete the batch. But as luck would have it, I passed the All India PMPD Exam and got a seat in Stanley Medical College in Chennai – an old Medical College with a chequered history. Check their history here.
Let me be frank here….one of the reasons I tried hard to get into a medical college even though I wanted to do creative writing for a living, was because of what T Arun told me.
He said: “Girls in Medical Colleges know everything about sex. So they aren’t scared to have a little fun on the side.”
I would have brushed it aside, but the naughty smile on his face made me ask him. “What kind of fun-on-the-side are you talking about?”
That’s when Siddharth shared with me what he called ‘Siddharth’s Know-all Do-all Theory’. According to this theory, girls aren’t as adventurous as boys when it comes to pre-marital sex because they aren’t sure of the physical, biological and mental consequences of sex. If they were fully aware of everything (as a medical girl student is expected to be) they will throw caution to the winds and start behaving like boys (or men).
I loved his theory and asked him: “Are you sure? Coz I hate the bleach, formalin and cold steel smell that one gets in the hospital. If at all I join a medical college, it will be because of my increased chances.”
“Kill me if you don’t get laid within the first month,” he assured me.
The day before I was to leave for Chennai to join Stanley Medical College, my mother called me and said: “Son, promise me after you get out of the college you will go to our village and serve the people?”
I assured her.
Before my mother and I could part ways, my father saw us. He waited till my mother was away and told me: “By the way, there is a parallel entry for doctors in the Army. They obviously can’t do with just 12 doctors from AFMC every year. Let us discuss once you get your medical degree.”
I assured him.
Two months in the medical college, I called up Siddharth to tell him that his Know-all Do-all theory wasn’t working. He assured me that Chennai girls being conservative might take a while.
When he asked me if there were any Punjabi or Gujarati girls in my batch, I reminded him that I was short and dark and there was no chance in hell to land a Punjabi or a Gujarati girl….even if they were not as conservative. He didn’t take the topic further.
By the eighth month I had started hating the place. I couldn’t live with pain & death all around me. I looked around for distractions but there were none.
That’s when I met Rohit….our colleges’ watch man’s son. His father was always comparing him to the medical students he watched over and this young boy of 17 was completely broken.
After we had known each other for 2 months, we decided to run away to some peace.
Thank God I didn’t jump from the Stanley Medical College building for I would have surely died (I wasn’t in a movie, remember?).
Rohit was from Gujarat and we decided to run away to a small village in Nadiad district. To cut the long story short….we stayed in a village hut. For the next three months the open fields were my toilet room and the handpump 250 meters away was my bathroom. I worked as a munshi (accountant) in a brick kiln and Rohit made bricks in the same kiln. We lived peacefully till I exhausted my Rs 2000.
When my money ran out, I called my parents. This time around, they were happy to just have me back. They didn’t want me to join the Army or become a Doctor.
Three days later, my father was in Nadiad and we went back to Madurai together. Rohit decided to stay back because his father was still upset with him.
I went on to study BA Economics at The American College and successfully managed to stop my parents from forcing me to do an MBA. I didn’t go on to become a successful writer as I had wanted…but I do have a blog where readers sometimes leave encouraging comments.
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Now tell me…don’t I deserve a credit at the end of 3 Idiots? Did it have to be an Engineering College? Isn’t a Medical College good enough?
 
About the Author : Jamshed V Rajan (also known as Jammy) is Associate Vice President –
Product Management at www.ibibo.com. He builds online communities in
exchange for money, which he hands over to his wife and 3-year-old
daughter for spending. Chat with him on jv.rajan[@]gmail.com or call
him on 09971996581. He has a funny blog at www.ouchmytoe.com