Rajkumar Hirani

Some Lesser Known Facts About Rajkumar Hirani

• Does Rajkumar Hirani smoke: Not Known

• Does Rajkumar Hirani drink alcohol: Not Known

• Rajkumar Hirani’s father, Suresh, migrated from Sindh (now Pakistan) to India during the time of Indo-Pak partition. Suresh was only 14 at that time.

• His father started a typing institute in Nagpur, initially with just 2 typewriters. In a matter of months, his father was training around 1000 students with 16 batches a day. However, the typewriters were soon replaced by computers and the business was forced to shut.

• Although Hirani’s parents wanted him to become a Chartered Accountant, he was more inclined towards theatre and acting. During his college days, he was an active participant in the field of Hindi Theatre.

• After watching their son’s zeal to become an actor, his parents made every possible effort to fulfil his dream. As a result, they sent Hirani to a reputed acting school in Mumbai. However, he could not adopt the environment of the school and came back to his house a few days later.

• Hirani then sought admission into the directorial course at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. His chances of selection, however, looked bleak as there were far too many applicants. Feeling defeated, he made a compromise and finally took up the course of Editing. Eventually, Hirani managed to earn a scholarship thereby reducing the financial burden on his father’s shoulders.

• After graduating, Hirani struggled for many years in Mumbai, in order to become a film editor. Finding no success, he then shifted to the field of advertising, where he slowly and steadily established himself as a director of commercial advertisements. He himself started featuring in many commercials soon after. Check out his Fevicol TVC in the video below:

• His dream of entering the B-Town soon started to look like a reality when he was called up by director Vidhu Vinod Chopra to work on the promos and trailers of the movie- 1942: A Love Story. Notably, Hirani’s first big-budget film as an editor was Mission Kashmir (2000).

• Hirani’s directorial debut film, Munna Bhai MBBS (2003), became a huge success worldwide. Shot on a budget of INR 1 Crore, the movie accumulated a distribution share of INR 2.5 Crore from only the domestic market.

• His dream run as a director continued with the success of his next 3 films- Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), 3 Idiots (2009) and PK (2014). While 3 Idiots broke all existing domestic and overseas collection records at that time, PK became the highest Indian grosser earning a mammoth INR 500 Crore at the box-office.

• As far as awards are concerned, Raju Hirani has as many as 4 National Awards and 11 Filmfare Awards under his belt.

• A theatre fan and a devoted brother, Hirani produced her sister’s first theatrical show titled Growing Up. The show revolves around the repercussions of puberty.