Activist, educator and environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk has responded to Aamir Khan’s claim that his character Phunsukh Wangdu in the 2009 film 3 Idiots was not modelled on him, suggesting the actor may have suffered “short-term memory loss” after their earlier meeting.

Wangchuk addressed Khan’s remarks on Prakhar Gupta’s podcast, days after 3 Idiots co-star Omi Vaidya said on social media that the character was based on Wangchuk. Khan subsequently said Vaidya was “wrong”, claiming that he, director Rajkumar Hirani and co-writer Abhijat Joshi did not know Wangchuk at the time.

An old video of Khan meeting Wangchuk before the release of 3 Idiots later resurfaced online.

Referring to the video, Wangchuk said Khan had been watching his speech while dressed in his Ghajini costume.

“In the videos that resurfaced, he was watching my speech in his Ghajini outfit. Maybe because he was in the Ghajini outfit, he may have encountered short-term memory loss. He may have forgotten our meeting after 15 minutes. So, I’m not surprised,” Wangchuk said.

Wangchuk also recalled having a “detailed meeting” with Khan at the time.

“They say he gets too immersed in his characters. So, maybe he was too immersed in the Ghajini character when he saw me receive an award at an award function he also attended. Otherwise we discussed a lot of ideas,” he added.

However, Wangchuk stopped short of claiming that Phunsukh Wangdu was entirely based on him.

“That’s what we call an influence or an inspiration, right? Maybe he went with all those ideas to his writers and changed the script. There was already a script. Maybe he did it subconsciously, and maybe the writers didn’t know where it came from. I don’t have any issue with that, whatever the case may be,” he said, laughing.

3 Idiots featured Khan as Phunsuk Wangdu, a renowned educator and environmentalist based in Leh, Ladakh, whose identity is kept secret until the climax. Before that revelation, his character appears as Rancho, the son of his father’s former employer, who attends a prestigious Indian engineering institute using his name.

The film, co-written and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, also starred Kareena Kapoor, R Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Boman Irani, Mona Singh, Ali Fazal and Jaaved Jaffrey, among others.

3 Idiots earned more than Rs460 crore worldwide. The makers are reportedly planning a sequel, with the original cast set to reprise their roles.