Lage Raho Munna Bhai

Bangla poster for sale: Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006).

Featured here is a rare original movie poster of the 2006 blockbuster hit Hindi film directed by Rajkumar Hirani and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Lage Raho Munna Bhai.

The cult comedy starred Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi and Vidya Balan in lead roles. Boman Irani, Abhishek Bachchan, Dia Mirza, Jimmy Shergill, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Saurabh Shukla and Dilip Prabhavalkar played supporting roles in the film.

A sequel to the 2003 film Munna Bhai M.B.B.S., Lage Raho Munna Bhai saw Sanjay Dutt reprise his role as “Munna Bhai” and Arshad Warsi as his partner in crime “Circuit.” In the film, Munna Bhai starts to see the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi that influences him to practice “Gandhigiri” or “Gandhism” in order to help solve people’s problems.

Printed and circulated during the release of the film in Kolkata (somewhere in 2006), this old Lage Raho Munna Bhai poster was originally designed for publicity of the film but never ended up being used.

Lage Raho Munna Bhai was a blockbuster hit, making this Bangla poster, highly collectible!

This original film poster was originally hand painted on canvas by a poster design studio in Kolkata. An announcement on the top reads, “Fridays from September” and declares it as the “Best Attraction of Vishwakarma Puja.”

The subsequent text reads, “Munna Bhai is back in a new look” followed by the title. Actors Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi and Vidya Balan are credited in this Lage Raho Munna Bhai poster and so are producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra and director Rajkumar Hirani. The name of the theater and its show timings are mentioned at the bottom of this old Bangla poster.

This original typography movie poster is set in a single tone of black, with the text standing out in sharp contrast in white. Typography used in this original Bangla poster is entirely in Bengali with only a translation of the title appearing in Devanagari Hindi.

Lage Raho Munna Bhai won widespread critical acclaim and had a number of prominent screenings, including the global judiciary summit in 2006, the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, the Old Dominion University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Law School.

The blockbuster film received a number of awards, most notably four National Film Awards. Lage Raho Munna Bhai was the first Hindi film to be shown at the United Nations and was also screened at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra submitted the film as an independent entry for the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

The Gandhian principle of Satyagraha (non-violence) was well adapted in Lage Raho Munna Bhai. Thanks to the film, the term “Gandhigiri” became synonymous with peace and love.

The then Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, was given a private screening of Lage Raho Munna Bhai. Singh announced the creation of a new Public Services Bill to combat corruption in 2006 and cited Lage Raho Munna Bhai as one of its influences.

The British DVD of Lage Raho Munna Bhai contains a bonus DVD which has a 98 minute 5 part documentary on the making of the film, interviews with members of the cast and crew, and information on the creation of the song and dance numbers. It also has a special feature called “Munna meets Bapu.”

“Lage Raho Munna Bhai – The Original Screenplay” was published in 2009 and includes a number of stills from the film as well as character profiles.

The music of Lage Raho Munna Bhai was composed by Shantanu Moitra and lyrics were written by Swanand Kirkire. The song “Bande Mein Tha Dum, Vande Mataram” sung by Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal became a rage throughout the nation and helped Swanand Kirkire bag the National Film Award for Best Lyrics. Another song from the film, “Pal Pal … Har Pal” is fondly remembered and played till date.

Production of the third Munna Bhai film installment starring Sanjay Dutt in the title role is believed to have begun in 2020. Lage Raho Munna Bhai inspired a regional remake in Telugu.

Such was the impact of the film on social culture that Gandhism made a comeback in India under the new slang “Gandhigiri,” with the country seeing several non-violent protests post the film’s success. Most notable among these protests were in 2006 when farmers protested with flowers; in 2008 when Greenpeace activists delivered thousands of roses to Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Motors, to urge him to reconsider his plans of building a port at the nesting grounds of olive ridley sea turtles; and again in 2007 when Aman Kapoor founder of the Immigration Voice forum in the US sent hundreds of flower bouquets to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office by Indians who were legally in the US but caught in a green card backlog.

Lage Raho Munna Bhai revived an interest in books about Gandhi. In particular, demand for Gandhi’s autobiography, “My Experiments with Truth” increased after the film’s success.