I still remember my first step past my college gate. I smiled to myself imaging the rocking life I was going to have for the next four years. Then suddenly, my mind brought back what my father told me before dropping me to college. “College is the most important period of your life. You learn a lot of things. Most importantly, you learn to live,” he said.
True! College life is the most important time of our life. We learn new things. We meet new people. New experiences, new life!
The life of youngsters inside a hostel room or inside the classroom has always attracted filmmakers. As a result, we have had many movies about college life.
“Kuch Kuch Hota Hai”, the evergreen movie by Karan Johar stays fresh in our minds. “3 Idiots” by Rajkumar Hirani still holds many box office records!
With the constant rise in the number of movies concentrated on college life, the question arises whether all those movies portray the real college life. The answer is a straightforward NO.
Every college movie has a dashing hero (who is very popular and badass), a rich spoilt brat who is the usual enemy of the hero and a beautiful heroine (who might be the most popular girl, the girlfriend of the villain, or a damsel in distress). And the whole college would witness fights between hero and villain.
Is there any college movie without a river of alcohol in it? Is there a movie where the hero doesn’t go to parties? There might be, but they are few. On the other side, there are so many movies which create an impression that drinking and partying is a symbol of youth. You won’t be considered cool unless you are a badass party animal!
Love in the air, friendship in your veins. College life is usually portrayed as an enjoyable, experience. I agree that it really is enjoyable, but the movies forget why the hero, heroine and villain came to college in the first place. Why did they go through the hideous entrance examination process and get admitted into an institution? Education! Bollywood has a history of showcasing the hero as someone who never enters the lecture halls and comes to college only to takes the girl out for dates.
Directors never address how the hero is allowed to attend the final exams and the placement interviews with such low attendance. Even if the hero fails in exams, no matter what, he will be the ideal student with the highest placement. No one asks how he passed the exams without attending the classes.
Showcasing college life as something it’s not in reality, affects the youth negatively. No one ever seems to care about the fact that there are school students who are under the impression that college life is a cake walk.
Although Bollywood has a series of movies that depict college life wrong, the character of Raju Rastogi (played by Sharman Joshi) in “3 Idiots” is a wonderful example of an engineering student’s life. Staying up late at night to complete the assignments, projects, mini projects, internals, semester exams, lab exams, viva, the list goes on.
Every course has its pressure points. Students have to put in their 100% for a good result. People always say that you learn new things during college life. True, but the “new things” are not just friendship and romantic feelings.
You get the courage to overcome obstacles, standing strong da uring crisis, taking up responsibility. In short, you learn to live! And it’s these life lessons that take you to great heights.