5 min readNew DelhiJul 17, 2026 01:01 PM IST
With Sonam Wangchuk’s ongoing hunger strike bringing renewed attention to his work, the long-standing debate over whether 3 Idiots was inspired by the engineer-innovator-educator has resurfaced. While Wangchuk has repeatedly distanced himself from the film over the years, Aamir Khan recently clarified that neither he nor the film’s writers even knew about Wangchuk while making the Rajkumar Hirani directorial. The clarification has once again raised an old question: Who actually inspired Rancho?
Released in 2009, 3 Idiots was officially adapted from Chetan Bhagat’s novel Five Point Someone. The film itself became the subject of controversy after Bhagat alleged that he wasn’t given due credit for the story. Around the same time, Sonam Wangchuk publicly stated that he had never been consulted by the filmmakers and had not given his consent for any adaptation of his life. He claimed he had even written to the makers after the film’s release but never received a response. Over the years, however, director Rajkumar Hirani and producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra have offered different accounts of what shaped Rancho’s character.
Rajkumar Hirani: Rancho was inspired by an FTII student
Speaking to Komal Nahta on his podcast last year, Hirani said the idea for Rancho emerged from his days at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), where he found hostel life fascinating. “I often thought there were so many interesting stories here that should someday be shown in films,” he recalled. He then narrated the real-life incident that inspired Rancho’s philosophy.
ALSO READ | ‘I am not Phunsukh Wangdu’: Why Sonam Wangchuk distanced himself from Aamir Khan’s 3 Idiots
“Aamir’s character was inspired by a student in our film school, whose name I can’t reveal. He wanted to become a filmmaker but couldn’t secure admission to FTII. At the same time, one of his friends got selected, but his father refused to let him join. So the student who didn’t get admission assumed his friend’s identity and studied filmmaking for three years. Nobody discovered the truth until graduation. When people told him he wouldn’t receive a certificate, he replied, ‘I never wanted one. I just wanted to learn filmmaking.’ That inspired me because education is not about certificates.” Hirani added that several such real-life incidents eventually came together to shape the story of 3 Idiots.
Vidhu Vinod Chopra: Rancho was inspired by me
Years later, producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra offered a different version. During a conversation at NFDC’s Film Bazaar in 2014, Chopra claimed Rancho was largely inspired by his own life. “The character of Rancho is based on me. It is inspired by my life.” He said he rarely attended classes at FTII and even failed his final examination. “When I was nominated for the Oscars, the institute invited me as a guest and handed me my passing certificate as an honour.”
Chopra also revealed that his family had wanted him to become a doctor, and he hid the truth about his filmmaking ambitions from his father for years. “When I was nominated for the Oscars, I confessed everything to my father. I thought he would congratulate me. Instead, he looked at me and said, ‘You fooled me,’ and gave me a slap with love and affection.” Chopra was nominated for the Academy Awards in 1979 for his documentary short An Encounter With Faces.
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Then came another inspiration: Phuntsok
Interestingly, Chopra later appeared to add another layer to Rancho’s origin story. At the first Himalayan Film Festival in Ladakh in 2021, during an official PIB broadcast, the producer publicly acknowledged his former FTII classmate, Phuntsok, saying the character’s full name—Phunsukh Wangdu—was inspired by him. Chopra affectionately referred to him as “Phuntsok Ladakhi.”
Sonam Wangchuk’s version
Meanwhile, Sonam Wangchuk has maintained that his association with 3 Idiots began before the film’s release. Speaking at Josh Talks, Wangchuk recalled meeting Aamir Khan at a CNN-IBN awards ceremony in 2008, where he spoke to the actor about education reforms and the conflict in Siachen. According to Wangchuk, Aamir also watched an audio-visual presentation showcasing his work.
A year later, after 3 Idiots released, Wangchuk said people began congratulating him on a film they believed was based on his life.
“People told me, ‘The film based on you is fantastic.’ I was shocked. They also said they had shown my school.” When he contacted his school, Wangchuk said he learned that a film crew had indeed visited but had kept the project a secret. “They wanted to bring a lot of plastic material, so we refused permission. Later, they shot in another nearby school.”
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Aamir Khan dismisses the connection
The debate resurfaced after actor Omi Vaidya, who played Chatur in 3 Idiots, voiced support for Wangchuk’s ongoing hunger strike, saying, “I don’t want Phunsukh Wangdu to die”—a remark many interpreted as acknowledging Wangchuk as the inspiration behind Rancho.
However, during a conversation at BFI Southbank in London on Thursday, Aamir Khan firmly dismissed that belief. Calling it a “misconception,” he said Omi was “wrong.” “Neither Raju and Abhijat, who are the writers of the film, nor I knew about Sonam at the time when we were making 3 Idiots.”
His statement directly contradicts the popular belief that Wangchuk inspired Rancho, even as Wangchuk continues to maintain that the filmmakers had visited his school before the film’s release, adding another chapter to one of Bollywood’s longest-running creative attribution debates.
“I wrote a letter to the makers, but they never replied”, said Wangchuk.
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