Farhan Qureshi (R. Madhavan), Raju Rastogi (Sharman Joshi), and Rancchoddas “Rancho” Shyamaldas Chanchad (Aamir Khan) are college students on the Imperial School of Engineering, among the best schools in India. They’re room-mates within the school’s hostel. Whereas Farhan and Raju are common college students from modest backgrounds, Rancho is from a wealthy household. Farhan desires to turn out to be a wildlife photographer, however is pursuing an engineering diploma to fulfil his father’s want. Raju, alternatively, wants to enhance his household’s monetary state of affairs.
Rancho is a rich genius who research for the sheer Pleasure of it. His ardour is for data and taking aside and constructing machines relatively than the traditional obsession of the opposite college students with examination ranks. Together with his completely different method Rancho incurs the wrath of school’s dean, Professor Viru Sahastrabudhhe aka ViruS (Boman Irani). Rancho irritates his lecturers by giving inventive and unorthodox solutions, and confronts ViruS after fellow scholar Pleasure Lobo hangs himself in his dormitory room.
Rancho denounces the rat race, dog- eat-dog, senseless rote studying mentality of the establishment, blaming it for Lobo’s loss of life. Threatened by Rancho’s expertise and free spirit, ViruS labels him an “fool” and ttempts, on quite a lot of events, to destroy his friendship with Farhan and Raju, warning them and their dad and mom to avoid Rancho. ViruS’s mannequin scholar is Chatur Ramalingam or “Silencer”, (Omi Vaidya) who sees a excessive rank at a prestigious school as his ticket to greater social standing, company energy, and wealth.
Chatur conforms to the expectations of the system. Rancho humiliates Chatur, who’s awarded the respect of creating a speech at an award ceremony, by substituting obscenities into the textual content, which has been translated into Hindi by the librarian. As xpected, Chatur mindlessly memorises the speech, with out noticing that something is amiss, partly aided by his lack of information on Hindi. His speech turns into the laughing inventory of the viewers, infuriating the authorities within the course of.
In the meantime, Rancho falls in love with ViruS’s medical scholar daughter Pia (Kareena Kapoor) when he, Raju and Farhan crash her sister’s wedding ceremony banquet with a purpose to get a free meal, within the course of infuriating ViruS. The three college students proceed to anger ViruS, though Rancho retains coming first in each examination, whereas Chatur is all the time second, and Farhan and Raju are inevitably within the ast two positions. The tensions come to a head when the three pals, who’re drunk, break into ViruS’s home at evening so Rancho can suggest to Pta, after which urinate on a door contained in the compound earlier than working away when ViruS senses intruders.
The following day, ViruS threatens to expel Raju lest he rat out Rancho. Unable to decide on between betraying his buddy and letting his household down, Raju Jumps out of the third flooring window and lands within the courtyard. After intensive care from Pia and his pals, he awakes from a coma. The expertise nas modified Farhan and Raju, and so they undertake Rancho’s outlook. Farhan decides to pursue his love of images, whereas Raju takes an surprising method for a company Job interview. He provides a collection of non-conformal and frank solutions.
Nonetheless, Virus is unsympathetic and vows to make the ultimate examination as exhausting as attainable in order that Raju is unable to graduate. Pia hears him and angrily confronts him, and when ViruS provides the identical ruthless reply he provides to his college students, Pia reveals that Viru’s son, her brother, was not killed in an accident however dedicated suicide in entrance of a prepare and left a letter as a result of ViruS had compelled him to pursue a areer in engineering over his love for literature; ViruS all the time talked about that he unsympathetically failed his son on the ICE entrance exams again and again to each new consumption of ICE college students.
After this, Pia walks out on the household, and takes ViruS’ spare keys along with her. She tells Rancho of the examination, and he and Farhan break into ViruS’s workplace and steal the questions and provides it to Raju who, together with his new-found angle, is unconcerned with the prospect of failing, and refuses to cheat. Nonetheless, Virus catches the trio and expels them on the spot. Nonetheless, they earn a reprieve hen Viru’s pregnant elder daughter Mona (Mona Singh) goes into labour on the similar time.
A heavy storm cuts all energy and visitors, and Pia continues to be in self-imposed exile, so she instructs Rancho to ship the infant within the school widespread room by way of Voice over ‘P, after Rancho restores energy utilizing automobile batteries and an influence inverter that Rancho had made up and ViruS had mocked. He then delivers the infant with the Helpance of a cobbled-together Vacuum extractor. After the infant is outwardly stillborn, Rancho resuscitates it. ViruS reconciles with Rancho and his pals and permits them to take their closing exams and so they graduate.
Rancho comes first and is awarded ViruS’s pen, which the professor had been conserving for many years earlier than discovering a superb sufficient scholar to reward it to. Their story is framed as intermittent flashbacks from the current day, ten years after Chatur vowed revenge on Rancho for embarrassing him with the speech and promised to turn out to be extra profitable than Rancho a decade later. Having misplaced contact with Rancho, who disappeared through the commencement social gathering, Raju and Farhan start a journey to search out him.
They’re Joined by Chatur, now a rich and profitable businessman, who’s assured that he has surpassed Rancho. Chatur can be trying to seal a take care of a well-known scientist and potential enterprise affiliate named Phunsukh Wangdu. Chatur sees Wangdu, who has tons of of patents, as his ticket to additional social status. Once they discover Rancho’s home, they stroll into his father’s funeral, and discover a fully completely different Rancho Oaaved Jaffrey).
After accusing the brand new man of stealing their buddy’s identification, the host pulls a gun on them, however Farhan and Raju flip the tables by seizing his father’s ashes and threatening to flush them down a rest room. The householder capitulates and says that their buddy was an orphan ervant boy who cherished studying, whereas he, the true Rancho, was a lazy rich baby who disliked examine, so the household agreed to let the servant examine in Rancho’s place as an alternative of labouring.
In return, the true Rancho would pocket the and the advantages thereof, whereas the impersonator would sever all contact together with his college- mates and begin a brand new life. The actual Rancho reveals that their buddy is now a schoolteacher in Raju and Farhan then discover Pta, and take her from her wedding ceremony to Suhas, by performing the identical tips together with his materials possessions, and having Raju flip as much as he ceremony disguised because the groom and eloping with Pia in public.
Once they arrive in Ladakh, they see a gaggle of enthusiastic kids who’re motivated by love of data. Pia and the faux Rancho rekindle their love, whereas Chatur mocks and mocks him, the schoolteacher, earlier than strolling away. When his pals ask what his actual title is, he reveals it’s Phunsukh Wangdu. They cellphone Chatur, who has turned his again, to show round and meet his potential enterprise accomplice. Chatur is horrified and falls to his knees, accepts his defeat and continues to plead his case with Phunsukh to determine the enterprise relationship he was after.