School and college are or were a big part of our lives and obviously, many of us are quite nostalgic about the ‘best days of our lives'. It follows that a lot of Bollywood movies also portray schools and colleges – some get it right, some get it quite wrong. For instance, the way Karan Johar movies depict school and college bear no resemblance to reality, but many other movies did get it right.
So you have these 20 something guys playing students in some residential facility with a domineering principal in Mohabbatein. All the action revolves around romance, the rebel teacher dreaming of his dead love and the ultimate triumph of love. Studies --- who that?
This is another film supposed to be about college, but Yaariyan became known mainly for the floor-filler Blue hai Pani Pani. Kids seem to have little to do except look after their emotional entanglements in this film. Also those bikinis – which Indian college has kids that cool?
The Student of the Year films are arguably the most implausible ‘school’ films ever made. Even the supposedly less prosperous students are unimaginably cool in these films. They do absolutely none of the things we did in school. Instead, they compete for awards, wear designer clothing and show off their washboard abs.
Sushmita Sen is the smoking hot teacher in Main Hoon Ha. One has rarely if ever seen an educator with such a glamorous sense of style in reality.
The college and the kids in Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na were altogether more believable. That college corridor with the notice boards reminds me of mine. The dorky but street smart friends who stick together through thick and thin seem familiar.
We all probably had that one amazing holiday with college friends. We probably spent a lot of time discussing life and philosophy in the college canteen or the chai ki tapir. These were times when a lot of concepts got sorted out didn’t they? In some ways those very cool kids in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani were identifiable.
There is much that is unbelievable in this film (childbirth using a vacuum cleaner? really) but there is a lot that it gets right. The hostel life in 3 Idiots with its failures and successes, even a tragic suicide, the cutthroat competition among students was believable. Those students forming lifelong bonds, playing pranks, experimenting with booze, getting into trouble with the authorities and finding studies difficult --- we’ve all been there.
Yuva is an edgy film about the gritty realities of youth, students’ politics and the way that crime often spills onto campuses. It bears a closer resemblance to the grim realities of a lot of Indian college campuses.
Hell yes! Those uncouth hostel kids in Chhichhore we all knew. We also knew about the sobering realities of study pressures that so many students continue to succumb to.
The ages of these ‘college students' may be out of synch (because apparently some simply refuse to pass out) and this strongly anti-establishment film would probably not get made today. However, their hangouts, their idealism, their bonding with each other make Rang De Basanti one of Indian cinema's best coming of age films.
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