Activist, educator, and environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk, who was recently in the news for sitting on a hunger strike during the student protests, has now responded to actor Aamir Khan’s claim that his character, Phunsukh Wangdu, from 3 Idiots, was not based on him.
During the protests, actor Omi Vaidya, who played Chatur in the 2009 film helmed by Rajkumar Hirani, had put up a video stating that the “real life Phunsuk Wangdu” needs people’s help. He was referring to Sonam when he was on his indefinite hunger strike.
Later, at an event for BFI Southbank Aamir was asked during a QnA session about Omi’s comment. “No. That’s not true actually. That is a misconception. I didn’t know about Mr Sonam at the time when we were doing the film 3 Idiots.”
He further explained, “Neither Raju (Rajkumar Hirani) and Abhijat (Joshi), who were the two writers, nor I knew about Sonam. However, what Mr Sonam is doing doesn’t have to be based on the character of 3 Idiots for us to respect him. In fact, Mr Sonam himself has said that the character is not based on him. He has also clarified.”
After Aamir’s comments, there were videos surfacing on social media which showed him sitting in the audience and attending an event in which Sonam was felicitated.
Recently, while appearing at Prakhar Gupta’s podcast, Sonam quipped that the actor may have suffered a “short-term memory loss” after their meeting. “In the videos that resurfaced, he was watching my speech in his Ghajini outfit. Maybe because he was in the Ghajini outfit, he may have encountered short-term memory loss. He may have forgotten our meeting after 15 minutes. So, I’m not surprised,” he said.
Sonam also shared that he not only met Aamir back then, but also had a “detailed meeting” with him. “They say he gets too immersed in his characters. So, maybe he was too immersed in the Ghajini character when he saw me receive an award at an award function he also attended. Otherwise we discussed a lot of ideas,” he added.
However, Sonam clarified that he can’t claim that Phunsukh Wangdu was completely modelled on him. “That’s what we call an influence or an inspiration, right? Maybe he went with all those ideas to his writers and changed the script. There was already a script. Maybe he did it subconsciously, and maybe the writers didn’t know where it came from. I don’t have any issue with that, whatever the case may be,” added the activist, laughing.
3 Idiots had Aamir play Phunsuk Wangdu, a renowned educator and environmentalist based out of Leh, Ladakh, just like Sonam Wangchuk, whose identity is kept secret right till the climax.
Co-written and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the film also starred Kareena Kapoor, R Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Boman Irani, Mona Singh, Ali Fazal, and Jaaved Jaffrey, among others.
