Sanjay Dutt @ 64, Still A Long Way To Go

“When will I  be free?” 

This used to be Sanjay Dutt’s refrain  during the  time he was being tried under TADA. Then it was tata to TADA, and  Dutt could finally breathe a sigh of relief.  

Sanjay Dutt has had the  most eventful life imaginable ,with so many ups  and downs  from drug overdoses to cancer,  that one could write  a  three-volume memoir on  him, and still  have room for  a fourth.

Dutt once told me, “I’ve had a crazy life. I lost my mum(the legendary actress Nargis) when I was  was 22. She was  my world. She spoilt me  silly.Anything I wanted was mine, all I had to  do  was just ask….not even ask. I just had to think of  something I wanted, she would get  it for me,” Dutt once shared with me.

Nargis’s death  was  the biggest blow in Sanjay Dutt’s life. He  could never get over the  loss. “She couldn’t even see Rocky(Dutt’s debut) film. Everything seemed useless thereafter.”

It is pretty much certain that if Nargis had lived her son would not have got himself into such serious trouble  with the  law.

“But the  miracle was  that I  survived, thanks to  all the  goodwill that I’ve in the industry. When I came back (from his five-year incarceration) I got back my career. No one said, don’t sign him. Everyone welcomed me back,”  Dutt had said.

Looking back it all seems like  a blur of  unimaginable  activities or an actor who never really grew up. “At heart, I still feel I am Baba. But the  mirror tells me another story.”

Sadly, Dutt has  not done  anything memorable on screen since Lage  Raho Munnabhai. And that  was in 2006. Ek aur Munnabhai  toh banta hai.