Lage Raho Munna Bhai

Story:

Lage Raho Munna Bhai is a 2006 Indian Hindi-language satirical comedy drama film written, edited and directed by Rajkumar Hirani, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Abhijat Joshi, and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra under the banner Vinod Chopra Films. A sequel to Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003), the film is the second installment of the Munna Bhai series. Sanjay Dutt and Arshad Warsi reprised their roles as Munna Bhai and Circuit, respectively. New additions to the cast include Vidya Balan, Dilip Prabhavalkar and Dia Mirza, while several actors from the original, notably Jimmy Sheirgill and Boman Irani, appear in new roles.

PLOT

Murliprasad Sharma alias Munna Bhai, a street-wise Bombay Hindi-speaking gangster in Mumbai, is smitten with the voice of Janhvi Sahni, a radio jockey. When she announces a contest on the life and beliefs of Mahatma Gandhi set for 2 October—Gandhi’s birthday, with an interview with her as the prize, he is determined to win.

Through the assistance of his sidekick Sarkeshwar “Circuit” Sharma, who kidnaps and bribes a group of professors, and his goons, who jam the phone lines, Munna succeeds and meets Janhvi in person. During the interview, he lies that he is a history professor specializing in Gandhi and living by his principles. Having difficulty speaking formal Hindi, Munna uses much colloquial language and calls his version of Gandhism “Gandhigiri” (lit. ’Gandhi-ing’). Despite this, Janhvi is impressed asks him to host a lecture on Gandhi in her home, which she has repurposed into a senior citizen community called “Second Innings House”. Realizing he can’t use his old tricks, Munna crams in a library to study the life and works of Gandhi in five days.

Gandhi starts to appear at this time and offers help and advice to Munna, who is the only person that can see him. Gandhi continues to appear each time Munna sings Raghupathi Raghava Rajaram (a song often sung in Gandhi’s memory). Initially, Munna believes he is going mad, but later comes to get used to Gandhi’s presence. With Gandhi’s help, Munna delivers a chaotic but well-received lecture about Gandhism being only used in the name and not in practice. He then helps the seniors solve their problems through his connections and rowdyism. Lucky Singh, an unscrupulous businessman who employs Circuit and Munna to conduct “underworld” activities for him, learns that Munna is in love with Janhvi and offers to help him propose to her by funding a trip to Goa for all the senior citizens. During the trip, Munna tries to confess his love to Janvi, however, they discover the trip was a ruse for Lucky to occupy the house. It turns out that Lucky’s daughter, Simran, is engaged to marry Sunny, the son of Khurana, a powerful businessman.

Khurana is superstitious and his activities are controlled by his astrologer, Batuk Maharaj. Maharaj’s particular use of numerology led Khurana to add an extra “k” to his name and further convinced him that “Second Innings House” would be the most auspicious place for the new couple to live, hence the seizure. Further, Batuk initially advised Khurana to not go through with the wedding since Simran is a manglik. Lucky, not wanting to lose such an alliance, covers this up by saying that there is a mistake at the time of Simran’s birth and hence the alliance progresses.

With the authorities and lawyers not willing to confront Lucky, Munna, Circuit, Janvi, and the senior citizens of Second Innings House launch a non-violent satyagraha outside Lucky’s home. After a fight with Lucky’s security guards, Munna and Circuit are arrested. Janhvi later bails them out and invites Munna to her radio show to publicize the issue.

They host a new program called “Bapu ka magic”, where they offer Gandhigiri-style advice to listeners’ problems, only asking that the listeners send Lucky flowers to help him recover from the “disease of dishonesty” in exchange for a unique, non-violent protest. After Munna gets his first caller, Victor D’Souza, who works as a taxi driver to repay his father’s money lost in bad investments, the show gains popularity and pressure builds on Lucky, who tries and fails to offer Munna other properties. Later, on Gandhi’s insistence, Munna gives a letter to Janhvi; thinking it is a love letter, Janhvi instead learns the truth about Munna and leaves heartbroken, causing the protests to falter. Despite this, Munna meets Lucky and assures him that he will not give up the fight. When Janhvi quits hosting the radio show, Munna continues to host it on his own, offering increasingly out-of-the-box but successful solutions to listeners, much to her chagrin.

Munna receives another setback when he is tricked by Lucky into revealing his conversations with Gandhi before a public audience, making him seem insane. On the day of Simran’s wedding, she learns the truth about her father’s deception of Khurana and runs away, ending up in Victor’s cab. Meanwhile, Munna and Circuit, before deciding to leave the city, hold the studio hostage, in an attempt to apologize to Janhvi through the program. Simultaneously, Victor connects Simran to Munna, where she reveals that although she loves Sunny, she is a manglik and thus is unlucky to marry. She is also devastated by her father’s wrongdoings and has always looked up to him. With Lucky, Janhvi, and the senior citizens listening in, Munna convinces her to go back and tell the truth, reasoning that Khurana’s belief in numerology is irrational. Simran does so and Khurana rejects her. Munna and Circuit go to the wedding and use some of their old tricks to successfully dispel Maharaj’s superstitions. When Khurana still remains unmoved, Sunny refuses to listen to his father and marries Simran anyway. Munna and Circuit voluntarily surrender themselves. In jail, Janhvi returns and reconciles with Munna and a grateful Lucky apologizes, promising to reform, and returns the house keys.

In the end, Gandhi narrates what happens to all the other characters; Munna and Janhvi got married and continued their show, Circuit is adopted by Bomi and Tina, a newly married old couple living at the house who adopt his mannerisms, Victor achieved success, finally earning enough money to buy a taxi of his own, making his father proud, and Sunny and Simran remained happily married, and have a child, prompting Khurana to renounce his belief in numerology, remove the extra “k” from his name, and fire Batuk. The film ends with a reformed Lucky sitting in the very same library in which Munna sat, reading up on Gandhi, and Gandhi begins to appear to him too.