‘Shah Rukh Khan and Makrand Deshpande were cast as Munna Bhai and Circuit, latter was called Khujli but Arshad…’: Abbas Tyrewala

He then shared, “When Munna Bhai was written, Circuit was called Khujli… when Shah Rukh was doing it, and it was going to be played by Makrand Deshpande. Then Sanjay Dutt happened and Arshad came aboard. He was called Khujli because that was far more roadside name.” Abbas said that when Arshad came on board, he rationalised the character and it was then decided that he would be called Circuit.

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“When Arshad came on to the film, he did some rationalising saying ‘what is defining this guy? He seems to lose his temper at the slightest provocation, so he has got a short circuit and that’s how the name circuit happened. I discovered it when I was watching the movie that the character was called Circuit,” he said. When Cyrus asked Abbas how he feels about that decision in hindsight, Abbas called it an “excellent decision” by Rajkumar Hirani. “I think Circuit is infinitely more memorable and more evocative a name than Khujli, which was a lot more generic,” he said and added, “Khujli was also… even though the character was called that, it’s not like I came up with the name. Raju Hirani had come up with the name. So if in his good judgement, he decided that Circuit made more sense, it’s not like Arshad forced it.”

Abbas has written dialogues for films like Maqbool, Main Hoon Na, Pathaan among many others. He is currently writing SRK’s King and Hrithik Roshan’s War 2.

In 2023, Hirani and Khan ultimately worked together in Dunki.