“I Have Seen MBBS 50 Times” - Sanjay Dutt

“I have seen Munnabhai MBBS 50 times,” says Sanjay Dutt. The controversial actor who completed twenty five years in film industry as well as his 47th birthday recently, is eagerly looking forward to his biggest ticket to fame and applause ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’, a sequel to the superhit ‘Munnabhai MBBS’. In an exclusive interview with IndiaGlitz the good natured Sanju admitted his immense regard for Vidhu Vinod Chopra for being the first one to turn up after the demise of his late father Sunil Dutt. And he feels that no one could have played Circuit as well as Arshad Warsi. Over to good-ol-Munnbhai


Good things about Munnabhai.
I just love Munnabhai’s character, I just love Circuit. I was dubbing. There is so much of bonding between Circuit and Munnabhai. I mean it’s so obvious when we see it and so rare to find this kind of bonding in cinema. According to me nobody can play Circuit except for Arshad.

What do you love about the character?
He’s honest, he’s humble, he’s not pretentious, he’s unbelievable. I mean like there’s one scene in Lage Raho where Jhanvi says ke kal Gandhi jayanti hain. He doesnt even know who Gandhi is. He’s so simple. It’s such an honest scene where I am asking Arshad ke Gandhi kaun hain, that scene on the bike. So these are unbelievable qualities of Munnabhai.

How many times have you seen Munnbhai MBBS?
I have seen 50 times. The other day it was coming on Zee I think. You know how many calls I get. People just don’t want to change the channel. I mean once they are seeing MBBS, they are done. It’s unbelieavable.

Your fans, are waiting for Lage Raho... They are working on the theme ke kya hoga, kaise hoga. ANy other stories like this you heard.

You know I read an article in Readers’ Digest and it was about this guy who was had diabetes without realising it. And he saw Munnabhai and the climax… remember when he is talking about the symptoms in front of that whole school. He realised he had the same symptoms and he got saved. I have met so many doctors, I mean I travel a lot. They come and say this is an education for us just to see Munnabhai. I mean we forget the human touch. We forget… everything is medicine no… but there is something beyond medicine which MBBS enforced like it may be only a hug. That kind of an effect it had.

You had any pressure doing the sequel because as a norm, sequels don’t work.
See, I didn’t have the kind of pressure what Raju must have had. You know I had to go Munnabhai. For him to make a sequel and to make it better than MBBS was a big challenge. And you know how many drafts and how many .. Munnabhai was a lawyer sometimes.. till the time this came up. For him to even think and make a script like that is unbelieavble. Vinod and him and whoever is involved.. is unbelieavable.

In Lage Raho, you and Arshad are singing one song, and Arshad was very scared and you were saying that dar mat, ho jayega like you are a pro in it.
No I am not a pro, See Sanjay Gupta makes me sing in each of his movies. So koi doosra dhanda ho jayega when I flop as an actor.

And how you maintained in the song Samjho ho hi gaya song because that was picturised in late nights and u hate shooting late nights.
No it was good yaar.

Tell us about Vinod.
Vinod is like family yaar. I mean when my father died he was the first person I called. I mean what I should have done to give a bath to my father, I couldn’t do it. He had to do it. I mean that’s how close he is to this family. And he loved Munnabhai than anybody else. If He doesnt like you, he will tell you I don’t like you. He’s so passionate about his work. He is so passionate, that we get inspired by it. I remember doing MBBS, nobody was buying the film. And to have guts like that ki come here watch the movie. You like it, you take it. And he showed it to how many other people. It could have gone anywhere. People could have said it’s a bad movie. But you know to have that kind of conviction and guts. And he told me that Sanjay I will give it to you in writing that this movie is going to be one of the biggest movie of yours. You just need to see his passion. It’s unbelievable.

Are you waiting for Hollywood version ?
Oh yeah, it wish they start shooting. I wish I could be there on the sets, You know it would be a great moment for me just to be there. See Chris Walker be the Munna.