Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.

***Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.*** is a 2003 Indian Hindi-language comedy-drama film directed by Rajkumar Hirani in his directorial debut and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Loosely resembling the American biographical comedy *Patch Adams*, the film stars Sanjay Dutt as the titular character and Gracy Singh in the primary lead roles, while Arshad Warsi, Boman Irani, Jimmy Shergill, Sunil Dutt and Rohini Hattangadi feature in supporting roles.

Based in Mumbai, *Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.* follows Murli Prasad Sharma (Sanjay Dutt), a goon nicknamed Munna Bhai, who stays with his friend and sidekick Sarkeshwar a.k.a. Circuit (Warsi), and pretends to be a doctor upon the arrival of his parents whose wish of seeing their son as a doctor is shattered after one of the father, Hari Prasad Sharma's (Sunil Dutt) old family friends, Jagdish Chandra Asthana (Irani), busts the truth regarding Munna's profession and practice, causing them to leave in shame and disgust. Vowing revenge against Asthana and his daughter "Chinki" who was his childhood friend, Munna unwittingly secures admission in a medical college whose dean, surprisingly, turns out to be Asthana himself. However, he ends up falling in love with a house doctor, Suman (Singh), unaware that she is "Chinki" herself, and brings about a climate of empathy amongst students and patients, which Asthana perceives as chaotic, thus creating a lot of hilarious situations and frictions between them.

*Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.* was a major critical and commercial success, and was later followed by a second film *Lage Raho Munna Bhai*, thus becoming the first installment of the *Munna Bhai film series*. Hirani revealed in an interview in September 2019 that production on the third Munna Bhai film starring Dutt in the title role will begin in towards the end of 2020. The film went on to win the 2004 National Film Award for Best Popular Film, and several Filmfare awards, including the Critics Award for Best Film and Best Screenplay. At the box office, it achieved a silver jubilee status (25-week run) being one of only eight films to have achieved this status since the year 2000. In its 26th week of release, the film could still be found playing on 257 screens throughout India.

## Plot

Murli Prasad Sharma, nicknamed Munna Bhai (lit. Brother Munna), is a *bhai* or *goon*: a good-natured don in the Mumbai underworld. Given that his father had wished him to be a medical doctor, he creates the faux Sri Hari Prasad Sharma Charitable Hospital, named after his father, and pretends to live in accordance with this wish whenever his father and mother visit him in Mumbai.

One year later, however, Munna's plan goes awry when his father meets an old acquaintance, Dr. Jagdish Chandra Asthana and the two older men decide to betroth Munna to Asthana's daughter, Chinki. At this point, Munna's cover is blown, and Asthana insults Munna's parents and calls them "fools" for being ignorant of Munna's real life. Hari and his wife Parvati, aghast and later heartbroken, leave for their village.

Munna, in grief and despair, decides that the only way to redeem himself and gain revenge for the humiliation suffered by his father at the hands of the spiteful Asthana is to become a doctor. He decides to go to a medical college to obtain an MBBS degree.

With the help of his right-hand man Circuit and others, Munna "gains admission" to a medical college by using Dr. Rustam Pavri, a faculty member of Imperial Institute of Medical Studies as a prop to write the pre medical examinations. He again encounters Dr. Asthana in the same college, who is the dean. His success there becomes dependent upon the (coerced) help of Rustam, which includes situations such as cheating in the sessionals.

While Munna has no medical skills, he transforms those around him with the "Jadoo Ki Jhappi" ("magical hug") – a method of comfort taught to Munna by his mother – and the compassion he shows towards those in need. Despite the school's emphasis on mechanical, Cartesian, impersonal and often bureaucratic relationships between doctors and patients, Munna constantly seeks to impose a more empathetic, almost holistic, regimen. To this end, he defies all convention by treating a comatose brain-dead subject, Anand Banerjee (Yatin Karyekar), as if the man were able to perceive and understand normally; interacts on familiar but autocratic terms with patients; humiliates school bullies; effusively thanks a hitherto underappreciated janitor; and encourages the patients themselves to make changes in their lives, so that they do not need drugs or surgery.

Asthana, who perceives all this as symptoms of chaos, is unable to prevent it from expanding and gaining ground at his college. He becomes increasingly irrational, almost to the point of insanity. Repeatedly, this near-dementia is shown when he receives unwelcome tidings and he begins laughing in a way that implies that he has gone mad. This behaviour is explained early on as an attempt to practice "laughter therapy", an attempt that seems to have backfired – Asthana's laughing serves more to convey his anger than diffuse it. Meanwhile, the carefree Munna finds himself unreservedly infatuated with Dr. Suman, who, it turns out, is Asthana's daughter. Some comedy appears here, because Munna is unaware that Dr. Suman and his childhood friend "Chinki" are one and the same; an ignorance that Suman hilariously exploits. Meanwhile, Munna cures Rustam's dying father by his own methods of empathy and compassion, which moves Rustam and he becomes grateful to Munna. Asthana tries several times to expel Munna but is often thwarted by Munna's wit or the affection with which the others at the college regard Munna, having gained superior self-esteem by his methods. Asthana keeps a challenge that Munna can stay in college only if he passes the exam under his supervision. Munna and other mates accept it. Meanwhile, cancer patient Zaheer is in a dying state seeking help from Munna. But unfortunately he dies in Munna's arms.

Eventually, Munna is shamed into leaving the college: his guilt over not being able to help Zaheer gets the better of him. In the moments immediately following Munna's departure, Anand miraculously awakens from his vegetative state; at this point Suman gives a heartfelt speech criticising her father for having banished Munna, saying that to do so is to banish hope, compassion, love, and happiness from the college.

Asthana eventually realises his folly. Munna later marries Dr. Suman, learning for the first time that she is "Chinki". The medical college – under Rustam Pavri's management since Asthana's retirement – begins to imitate Munna's radical methods of treatment. Munna and Suman open a hospital in Munna's home village, where they implement Munna's ideas daily. This, in addition to the birth of their offspring, earns Munna the nickname "Munnabhai – M.B.B.S. – Miya Biwi Bachhon Samet" (literally "Husband Wife with Children") even though he does not become a doctor. Munna's parents reconcile with him. His sidekick Circuit marries and has a son, who is nicknamed "Short Circuit". As the film concludes, Anand, restored to normal mental health, narrates the story to children as he is about to leave for Kolkata.

## Cast

* Sanjay Dutt as Murli Prasad "Munna Bhai" Sharma, a goon & medical student in Mumbai
* Gracy Singh as Dr. Suman "Chinki" Asthana
* Arshad Warsi as Sarkeshwar Sharma a.k.a Circuit, Munna's sidekick
* Boman Irani as Dr. Jagdish Chandra Asthana, Chinki's father & college's dean
* Jimmy Shergill as Zaheer Ali, Suman's hospital patient & Munna's friend
* Sunil Dutt as Shri Hari Prasad Sharma, Munna's father
* Rohini Hattangadi as Parvati Sharma, Munna's mother
* Nawazuddin Siddiqui as a pickpocket who tried to steal Hari's wallet
* Kurush Deboo as Dr. Rustam Pavri
* Yatin Karyekar as Anand Banerjee, hospital patient
* Rohitash Gaud as the Tender Coconut Seller at the Park
* Neha Dubey as Suman's friend, the fake Chinki
* Mumaith Khan in a special appearance as Nandini a.k.a. Reena, the hospital dancerin the song "Dekh Le"
* Priya Bapat as 1st Year Medical Student
* Pushkar Shrotri as professor in the college
* Sundeep Suthar as Chai Wala
* Vishal Thakkar as Varun, the suicide patient

## Production

In an interview, Hirani discussed how the idea for the film emerged from his interaction with some friends who were medical students. Later, he also had the opportunity to interact with a lot of medical professionals when some members of his family became sick. These experiences gave birth to the idea for the film.

During the scripting stage, Hirani wanted Anil Kapoor to play the lead role. However, Shah Rukh Khan was later cast as Munna along with Sanjay Dutt as Zaheer but due to his back problems Khan was forced to turn down the film. Nevertheless, the end credits of the film thank Khan for his inputs into the script. Hirani also narrated the script to Aishwarya Rai during the time he was in talks with Shahrukh Khan. Khan and Rai were working together on Devdas at the time. Vivek Oberoi was considered for the role but in the end Sanjay Dutt took the role as Munna, which ultimately gave him an image make over and helped change the public perception of the controversial superstar; his real-life father Sunil Dutt returned to film after 10 years to play Munna's father. This is the first and only film in which real-life father and son Sunil and Sanjay appear together, although they both appeared in *Reshma Aur Shera* (1971), *Rocky* (1981) and *Kshatriya* (1993) but not in any scenes together.

The original choice for Circuit's role was Makarand Deshpande. Arshad Warsi took over the role which proved to be a turning point for his career. The scenes of the Medical College were shot at the Agriculture College of Pune and Grant Medical College Mumbai.

The film has a similar premise to the 1998 American film *Patch Adams*, starring Robin Williams. The producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra, however, denies there being a resemblance, and says that he had not watched the film before the release of *Munna Bhai*.

Hirani did not have a big budget to shoot the film. As a result, he had to change the way certain scenes were shot. For example, the film ends with stills of Munna Bhai's wedding. Hirani was told that setting up a wedding stage and making a wedding outfit for Gracie Singh would cost him several thousand rupees. To save on some of that money, Hirani arranged to have the stills shot on an actual wedding stage set up for a real wedding near the sets. The production team reached an agreement with the wedding hall management and used their stage after a wedding ended.

## Music

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The music is composed by Anu Malik. Lyrics for the songs are penned by Abbas Tyrewala and Rahat Indori. According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, with around 1,000,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's fifteenth highest-selling.

## Awards and nominations

*Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.* was the recipient of a number of awards. At the 2004 Filmfare awards, it received the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Film, the Filmfare Best Screenplay Award, the Filmfare Best Dialogue Award, and the Filmfare Best Comedian Award in addition to four other nominations. It won a number of awards at the 2004 Zee Cine Awards including Best Debuting Director, Zee Cine Award for Best Actor in a Comic Role, Best Cinematography, and Best Dialogue.

Other ceremonies include the 2004 National Film Awards where it won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film and the 2004 International Indian Film Academy Awards where it won the IIFA Best Comedian Award.

## Remakes

 2004
 2006
 2017