"All is well." The line has outlasted almost everything else in 3 Idiots. Nearly two decades after the 2009 film, new viewers still find it, and old ones still repeat it.
Now its director, Rajkumar Hirani, says a sequel story is being written. In a recent interview he remarked that "the story is being written and casting will be the same." He has stopped short of officially announcing the film. Even so, the remark has raised hopes that the three friends could return to the screen.
If the project moves forward, Aamir Khan, R Madhavan and Sharman Joshi are expected to play Rancho, Farhan and Raju again. 3 Idiots remains closely tied to that original cast. For many viewers, the film is inseparable from the three of them.
The 2009 comedy followed engineering students under pressure to score well in exams rather than to learn. Its humour came from frustrations a huge audience recognised. The characters became shorthand for different ideas about ambition and success, and "All Is Well" became its most lasting phrase. For a campus story, it had a long life outside the classroom.
Hirani says the sequel did not begin as a wish to revisit a famous franchise. He and writer Abhijat Joshi were developing another story when they realised it could fit the 3 Idiots characters. The original trio may be seen again, but the new story, as he describes it, is not simply the old film stretched out for the sake of a sequel.
He has used this method before. Lage Raho Munna Bhai, the follow-up to Munna Bhai M.B.B.S., also started as a separate idea. Only later did Hirani and Joshi see that it suited Munna Bhai and Circuit, and bring those characters back for something new rather than repeating the first film.
A sequel set 20 years later would meet the friends long after campus life. In the real world, 17 years have already passed since 3 Idiots reached theatres. The world around them has had that time to change.
The first film asked what happens when young people are pushed toward lives they have not chosen. A later story may have another question: what happens after those young people have had to choose?
That may be why even this unfinished confirmation is enough to stir people. 3 Idiots is not only remembered. It is still being discovered, quoted and argued with.