The launch of the book “The 4th Idiot” in Gurgaon recently caused as much excitement among child audience at the event as the Aamir Khan starrer 3 idiots that did the same to many cinegoers. The protagonist of the book, penned by Biswaroop Roy Chowdhury, is by the way, inspired by the film. Like in 3 idiots , the book harps on the notion that if one attains excellence in any field, success is not far behind.
The launch of the book was followed by the screening of a film based on the book.
At the event, the author Chowdhury was all play, inviting children to come up to the stage to measure their happiness quotient. He did it by taking in the length of their smiles with the help of a ‘smile-o-meter'. The children were more than happy to participate in the little game and be told of their virtues.
He also posed quite a few questions regarding the movie to his audience and rewarded any one who answered regardless of the relevance of the answer. The movie screened at the event, The 4th Idiot — Pappu Chala Chand Par put forward to viewers five new mind techniques out of 69 mentioned in the book. Needless to say, the audience were more than eager to put the techniques to test, the author helped them out by giving them a list of words to memorise by using the technique.
Wangdo's theory
The book talks about an ex-student of the school run by Phunsuk Wangdo, the character played by Aamir Khan in 3 idiots. The student then employs Wangdo's methods in real life to win the race to success. It works better than the method based only on theory. Learning by rote is not a method preached in Wangdo's school.
The book also lays a lot of emphasis on the right kind of encouragement to students who are not that bright or are perhaps slow in grabbing certain concepts.
Prior to the Gurgaon event, the book was launched in Lucknow.
The book's author is the holder of two Guinness World Records (in memory and push-ups), author of as many as 25 books and holds patent for his inventions like the Memory Lab and Mnemonic Pen. Talking about the book, Chowdhury said, “The idea for such a book was in my mind before the movie was released. But seeing the popularity of the movie, I decided to borrow from it to make the book more appealing to children.”
