Raj Kumar Hirani

Trivia

• Raj Kumar was also seen in a Fevicol Ad where some guys and elephants are trying to pull and break a fevicol plank "Jor laga ke Haisha".
• He began his career in Mumbai as an editor and gradually established himself as a director and producer of advertising films.
• Raj Kumar joined the Film and Television Institute of India at Pune where he specialized in film editing.
• Raj Kumar is associated with Vinod Chopra Productions.
• Rajkumar Hirani is a National Award and Filmfare Award winning Indian filmmaker, screenwriter and film producer of Hindi films, best known as the creator of the Munna Bhai series.

Quotes

• "When I did 'Munnabhai M.B.B.S.' they said comedies don't run. When I did a sequel to 'M.B.B.S' they said sequels don't run. Now they'll say I'm capable of doing sequels only, not serious films. What to do? I'm really not worried about the next Munnabhai film. I already see it in my mind."
• "I'm not offering Gandhism as a full and final solution. But it's better than the complete erosion of ideology in today's society."
• "Take that scene where the man keeps repeatedly spitting outside the neighbour's door and the owner of the house decides to clean the spit repeatedly until the other man is shamed into stopping... that actually happened to my mother-in-law. A neighbour used to throw eggshells in her garden."
• "I don't claim to be anywhere near perfect. But I've strongly started believing in Gandhi-ji's ideology."
• "I wasn't a huge Gandhian fan before making this film. But I started reading up on him for this film. It required a lot research. That's when I discovered about this amazing man. His simple honest principles are eminently applicable today. Why do we wait for others to change the world? Why can't you or I do it?"
• "We sent Dilip's pictures to the guy who had done Ben Kingsley's makeup and he approved. Though Dilip had done his homework, he couldn't get it right on the first day. We then let him be. We told him to stop aping Gandhi-ji, just be himself as the attire was enough to suggest whom he was playing."
• "We had spoken to Naseer. He was interested. But he got busy with 'Krrish'. Then there was his own directorial venture. Then we thought of Surendra Rajan who had played Gandhi-ji in Raj Santoshi's 'Legend Of Bhagat Singh'. He had played the sweeper in 'Munnabhai M.B.B.S'. We finally zeroed in on this wonderful theatre and television actor Dilip Prabhavalkar for the role."
• "I wasn't scared of writing 'Munnabhai M.B.B.S.' But writing 'Lage Raho...', where I had to bring in Mahatma Gandhi, was scary. What saved Gandhi-ji and my film from getting stressed was the humour. You know Gandhi-ji was a very humorous man. But still I took a big risk in doing a film where Gandhi was a character."
• "This one really surprised me. A couple were in dispute about buying a flat because according to the expert it wasn't the correct location by the rules of vastu shastra. After seeing the film, the couple decided to give the vastu angle the slip and decided to buy the flat. I don't think the first film had this kind of impact. People are saying 'Lage Raho...' has gone far beyond 'M.B.B.S'."
• "Let me be in my comfort zone at least in these areas."