Sonam Wangchuk Responds to Aamir Khan’s 3 Idiots Claim With ‘Memory Loss’ Joke

Sonam Wangchuk has responded to Aamir Khan’s assertion that they did not know each other while 3 Idiots was being made, using the actor’s own film Ghajini to deliver a light-hearted rebuttal.

Speaking on Prakhar Gupta’s podcast, Wangchuk referred to older footage in which Aamir can be seen attending an awards event where the Ladakh-based education reformer was honoured. Wangchuk also claimed the two had a detailed conversation around that period.

His response, however, came with an important qualification: Wangchuk did not claim that 3 Idiots’ Phunsukh Wangdu was entirely modelled on him. The distinction matters because two separate questions—whether Wangchuk and Aamir met, and whether the film character was based on Wangchuk—have become mixed together in the public discussion.

What Sonam Wangchuk said about meeting Aamir Khan

During the podcast conversation, Wangchuk was asked about Aamir’s statement that he did not know him when 3 Idiots was being developed.

Wangchuk pointed to resurfaced footage from an awards ceremony at which Aamir was reportedly present during his speech. He then jokingly connected the actor’s apparent failure to remember the encounter with Ghajini, the 2008 thriller in which Aamir played a man living with anterograde amnesia.

“Maybe because he was in the Ghajini outfit, he may have encountered short-term memory loss,” Wangchuk remarked.

He also said that their interaction went beyond sharing the same venue, claiming that they met “in detail” and discussed several ideas. The publicly circulated footage supports the assertion that both men were present at the event, although the contents of any private conversation cannot be independently established from the clip alone.

Why Aamir Khan rejected the ‘real-life Phunsukh Wangdu’ label

The exchange followed comments Aamir made during a public appearance at BFI Southbank. The subject arose after his 3 Idiots co-star Omi Vaidya referred to Wangchuk as the “real-life Phunsukh Wangdu” while voicing support for the activist.

Aamir rejected that description as a misconception. He said that neither he nor director Rajkumar Hirani and co-writer Abhijat Joshi knew Wangchuk while making the film.

The actor nevertheless expressed respect for Wangchuk’s educational and environmental work, arguing that its value did not depend on an association with a fictional character.

Aamir’s statement addressed more than whether the two men had previously crossed paths. It also challenged the frequently repeated claim that Phunsukh Wangdu was directly based on Wangchuk.

What the old footage proves—and what it does not

The resurfaced awards footage complicates the most literal reading of Aamir’s claim that he did not know Wangchuk at the time. It appears to document an encounter before 3 Idiots reached cinemas in December 2009, while Wangchuk maintains that they also spoke at length.

That does not automatically establish that the meeting occurred before the character was conceived, that Aamir remembered it during production or that anything Wangchuk said influenced the screenplay.

Those details would require production records or direct confirmation from the film’s writers. No such evidence has accompanied the circulating clip.

The most defensible conclusion is therefore narrower: evidence supports Wangchuk’s contention that he and Aamir encountered each other before the film’s release, but it does not settle how—or whether—that interaction affected the movie.

Was Phunsukh Wangdu based on Sonam Wangchuk?

Wangchuk’s own answer is more measured than the popular “real-life Phunsukh Wangdu” label.

On the podcast, he said he could not claim that the character was completely modelled on him. He allowed for the possibility that some ideas or elements may have travelled indirectly, but stopped short of presenting that as an established fact.

This places his position closer to Aamir’s than the headlines might suggest. The two disagree over whether they had met before 3 Idiots, but neither supports the categorical assertion that Wangdu was a complete screen portrait of Wangchuk.

Phunsukh Wangdu remains a fictional figure within a film directed by Hirani and developed from a screenplay by Hirani and Joshi, with 3 Idiots drawing its broader college narrative from Chetan Bhagat’s novel Five Point Someone. Any claim of additional real-life inspiration needs evidence from the filmmakers rather than inference based on similarities.

The Celebrity Hour Take

The entertaining part of this exchange is Wangchuk turning Ghajini into a joke about Aamir’s memory. The editorially significant part is the need to separate proof of a meeting from proof of creative inspiration.

The old footage strengthens Wangchuk’s case that an encounter happened. It does not demonstrate that Phunsukh Wangdu was written around him. Until the writers offer documentary or first-hand confirmation of such an influence, describing Wangchuk as the character’s definitive “real-life” counterpart goes beyond the available evidence.

Sources & Verification

This report was prepared using Sonam Wangchuk’s recorded remarks on Prakhar Gupta’s podcast, published accounts of Aamir Khan’s BFI Southbank appearance and independently reviewed coverage of the resurfaced awards footage. Claims about the private conversation and its possible connection to 3 Idiots remain attributed to Wangchuk because no production material independently establishes what was discussed or whether it influenced the screenplay.