ARE YOU AN IDIOT?

After several weeks of night readings and examinations, I was keen of watching movies like forever. I settled for ‘3 Idiots’ after several minutes of navigating through the lots of movies, though there were more recent movies of 2014 and 2015. ‘3 Idiots’ is a 2009 Indian comedy-drama movie with star character as Rancho accompanied by his 2 idiot friends – Raju and Farhan. Rancho was the main Idiot. Rancho in the movie is a free soul learner who never conformed to the beliefs within the school – the Imperial College of Engineering (ICE). Well, I would like to believe that you all have watched the movie, so I would just skip some details based on my assumption. The movie involved more of flashbacks which involved their (Raju, Farhan and Rancho) time in college and not forgetting scenes with ‘Virus’ and ‘Silencer’.

For someone like me whom have watched the movie for a countless number of times, I knew each character’s lines. In short, I am what ‘Millimeter’ is to Virus in the movie – he knew all of Virus lines like the back of his hands. Yeah, I had watched it to that extent. Sometimes, I would skip to the end part, which for me is the best scene if the movie. I was done with the movie and all I could say to myself is “Dekunle, you an idiot.”I kept saying that to myself till I was forced to ask, were Rancho, Raju and Farhan all idiots as the movie title portrayed them to be? Was I an idiot because I just watched a movie I had already watched? The truth is they were actually not idiots but geniuses. The movie title is one big irony. They all followed their dreams and were doing fine after college not forgetting that Raju, despite breaking is legs still got a job which led to ‘Virus’ shaving his treasured mustache.

Now, enough of all the movie scenes and face it. There are lots of ‘Silencers’ and ‘Virus’ in our education system here in Nigeria. Those who would cram a whole textbook plus note plus handout words for words, without mixing up words like Silencer. Apart from the mindless memorizing of Silencer, he was also very proud and believed he knew more than others. When you look deep enough, you would also realize that we have more of Virus as lecturers in our tertiary institutions. The word ‘change’ is not correct when it comes to their teaching style. It is more of a one-way thing. When writing their exams, it is preferably you write all answers as they have said it in classes or handouts – no adding of your own ideas.

The likes of Raju, Farhan and Rancho are less than 20% in my school. I am yet to see a Farhan who would give up his engineering to pursue photography or Raju despite all the challenges mounted in from of him and never gave up. The truth is, like Rancho said in the movie “Learning is not memorizing the exact words from the book, learning is understanding it and being able to explain it in your own words.” How many Ranchos can we boast of in our schools – people with their own personal philosophy on how the educational system is supposed to be?

So if according to the movie, seeing what Raju, Farhan and Rancho accomplished at the end of it all and are still suitable for idiots; I am that kind of idiot. Therefore let me put it to you again, ARE YOU AN IDIOT?