Rajkumar Hirani opened up a reaction from Aamir Khan’s team member after the 3 Idiots screening that made him realise to be careful while writing comedies.
Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani is one of the finest filmmakers of Indian cinema. However, the biggest master missteps sometimes. From Munna Bhai MBBS to Dunki, Hirani has always made people laugh, cry, and enlighten with an important message. However, even his biggest blockbuster left a person offended and that affected him.
In Komal Nahta’s podcast, Game Changers, he asked Hirani how he could manage to make people laugh with the scene of Khujli Roti in 3 Idiots and get away with it. Nahta said that it’s just like getting away from a murder. Then, Hirani revealed that he had been unlucky once, and it was because of the same scene he mentioned. Hirani recalled that Aamir’s boy spoke to him after the movie screening, and said that he has mocked poverty and made people laugh at the expense of their bad financial conditions. Hirani said, “Aamir ke saath ek boy kaam karta hai, Sachin. Jab film release hui, toh team ne dekhi, and then Sachin came to me. He told me ‘Sir film toh achi lagi, but ek cheez achi nahi lagi. Aapne hum gareebon ka mazak udaya hai’ (There is a boy who works with Aamir, Sachin. When the film was released, the team saw it and then Sachin came to me. He told me ‘Sir, I liked the film but I didn’t like one thing. You have made fun of us poor people’).”
The PK director further added that though he and Abhijat Joshi never meant to mock poverty, they got a perspective after Sachin’s reaction. He further said, “It struck me then. Main toh cinema ki baat kar raha tha. Ek waqt jab black and white cinema hua karta that, Waha ek ghar dikhate the with laachar maa, kunwari bhen, aur bimaar baap (I was talking about cinema. There was a time when there was black and white cinema, there used to be a house with a poor mother, unmarried sister, and a sick father.). But we didn’t know how it could get such a reaction. So after that, I realised that one should be a little careful.” For the unversed, Hirani’s last directorial was Dunki (2023) with Shah Rukh Khan.
