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Regular-article-logo Friday, 04 July 2025

Munnabhai the chat factor - GenEx walks the Munna-Mahatma talk at Memorial

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Staff Reporter Published 12.09.06, 12:00 AM

What happens when Munnabhai meets the Mahatma? It becomes the talking point for GeneratioNext, after dusk, at malls and lounge bars. What happens when Munnabhai meets the Mahatma in an old-age home? It becomes the talking point for GenerationEx, at dawn, on the Victoria Memorial grounds.

In Calcutta, the impact of Lage Raho Munnabhai is quite audible — with teenagers mimicking Munna and celebrating Circuitspeak at City Centre and Tantra, and senior citizens mulling the Mahatma’s moves as they walk the talk at the Memorial.

“Many of us have seen the movie and our grandchildren are always talking about it. As a result, we end up sharing jokes from it during our morning walks. The movie is ageless,” smiles Asit Mukherjee, a regular at the Memorial.

And why not? The Rajkumar Hirani film focuses largely on only the lonely — a motley group of oldies in a makeshift home called 2nd Innings where hope beats heartbreak, where love and life get a second chance.

“The way the film advocates compassion and kindness in today’s day and age is wonderful. I loved the part where the old man extracts his rightful pension by embarrassing the callous young clerk,” laughs Girish Somani, a septuagenarian who watched the film with his friends on Sunday.

With the generation gap between grandchild and grandfather bridged, the Sanjay Dutt-Arshad Warsi starrer — with Dilip Prabhavalkar as a super cool Mahatma — has notched up 95 per cent occupancy at the INOXes in the 10 days. And so it’s a better morning walk companion than current topics like the tragic Malegaon blast or the dull Sensex. “The film made us laugh and cry; it’s great to start the day discussing it with friends,” says Manish Bengani, a veteran walker.

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