Remember him?
Ranchoddas Shamaldas Chanchad is a character from the Hindu movie “3 Idiots” portrayed by Aamir Khan. Rancho, as his nickname, is a member of the '3 idiots' gang he was friends with Farhan Qureshi and Raju Rastogi. He went missing after graduation and cuts of all contacts with his friends from college for the next ten years. This continued until his two friends traveled across India looking for him, while recalling the three of them spend together in college.
During his college, he showed passion in learning engineering. He was shown to have a brilliant personal philosophy, different from both Chatur- a student seems to memorize the definition of a word and recite it fully during recitation. He always gives his professors a bookish definition and Dir. Sahastrabuddhe's philosophy, who was the director of ICE the leading school who teach great in the field of Engineering, who puts the school from the lowest status up to the top. However, he was named “Virus” a computer virus by the students since he runs a factory not a college. He was the most competitive man ever. He could not bear anyone getting ahead of him. Life for him is just a profit-loss statement. For him, “life is a race, if you don’t run fast you’ll get trampled, no one will remember the second place, YOU NEED TO BE THE FIRST”
Rancho has a huge passion for machines, even going as far as to say that studying at ICE had been his childhood dream. He is also incredibly smart as he was able to do a 10th graders problem back when he was still in 6th grade. He has a great value for education and learning.
Rancho believes that someone should follow excellence and success will chase them, “become a good engineer and success will end up chasing you”. Because of this philosophy and outspoken attitude, it leads to Dir. Viru Sahastrabuddhe's least favorite student. However, his smart and 'out of the box' thinking is also often used to help others around him too. He often console and 'rescues' his friends in dire situations. He is kind and he cares for the well-being of his friends and others around him. Besides his brilliant philosophy, Rancho is also an optimistic and passionate student. His quote 'All is well' (Aal izz well) is one of the driving force of the movie which can be seen in a lot of occasions where the outcome seems to be no other than bad.
10 years later Farhan and Raju went to Shimla to find Rancho. It was revealed that the Rancho they knew was known as Chhote, the son of the Chanchad family's gardener. His father was a gardener and couldn't provide him a proper education. So Rancho often sneaked into school in order to learn. This was taken into advantage by the real Rancho. He was told to pretend to be Rancho and finish his education, so that Rancho could get his diploma without having to enter college. This offer is taken well by Chhote who can use the name Ranchoddas Shamaldas Chanchad to pursue the education he has longed for. After Chhote graduated from ICE, he kept his promise and gives back his diploma to the Chanchad family and cuts out all contact with his friends from ICE, but he also mentions that 'one day, there will be two idiots looking for him'. The real Rancho also mentions that Rancho (Chhote) missed his friends a lot.
In the end, the character of Ranchoddas Shamaldas Chanchad or Phunsukh Wangdu as his real name who became a great scientist serves as an eye opener to the viewers, especially to the students whom most of them went to college for a degree because of their belief that, if someone has a degree then he/she could have a social status and bear a better life, but to Rancho none of them mattered to him. He was in college for the joy of learning. He never cared if he was first or last.
School is not a pressure cooker if your heart trembles that fast when you are asked to answer a difficult question always remember that, heart scares easily, you have to trick it. However big the problem, tell your heart “All is well” pal, it may not resolve the problem at least you gain the courage to face it. You should enjoy the joy of learning. -Rancho
