The biopic on Sanjay Dutt’s life, Sanju, has had a massive opening at the box office. In just a few days it has crossed the Rs 100-crore mark. But the reviews of the Rajkumar Hirani-directed film are varied. People are either raving about the brilliant performance of Ranbir Kapoor, who plays Sanjay Dutt, or calling it a multi-crore PR exercise to whitewash Sanjay’s life and crimes.
The media is held responsible for Sanjay’s involvement in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case. It’s as if Sanjay was in the dock only because the media was after him – not because he had dodgy dealings with the underworld or stored guns and grenades at his home!
But more than this revisionism, as someone who has researched and written a book on Sanjay Dutt, I was disappointed to see that several crucial characters and episodes from Sanjay’s life are missing from the film. Here are a few of the more glaring omissions:
1) Sanjay Dutt’s Earlier Brushes With the Law
The 1993 serial blasts case wasn’t Sanjay’s first brush with the law. In 1982 he went on a wild shooting spree at his home on Pali Hill.
Excerpt from Sanjay Dutt: The Crazy Untold Story of Bollywood’s Bad Boy:
22 May 1982. It was a hot summer night. Most of the residents of posh Pali Hill were in deep slumber. Mansion number 58, near St Anne’s Church, was shrouded in darkness. But its seemingly serene facade hid much internal chaos. Suddenly, the neighbourhood was jolted awake by the sound of gunshots and the shattering of glass.
Sanjay Dutt staggered around the compound of his family home, waving his loaded .22 bore rifle in the air. In a few minutes, concerned neighbours and curious onlookers had gathered outside and were trying to peer in. The young man seemed lost, confused and a bit dazed. Then he broke down. The sobs claimed his body as he clung to the barbed wire fence with his bare hands.
Unmindful of his bleeding hands, Sanjay’s cry rent the air: ‘Why are you all scared of me? I am not a drug addict! . . . I’ve given up on drugs!’ It seemed that Tina Munim’s abandonment still haunted him.
It slowly became clear what had happened: in a haze induced by alcohol and heartbreak, Sanjay had opened fire in the air, breaking some windows of the Dutt mansion and shattering the windscreen of his car.
Then, as if the gravity of his irresponsibility sunk in, and suddenly aware of the number of onlookers, Sanjay ran back into the house and locked himself in his room. When the police came and searched the house, he was nowhere to be found. He would later confess that a friend had sneaked him out.
At the time of the incident, Sanjay had been alone in the house. That evening Sanjay had dropped a friend to the airport, which was when he received the news that the shooting of Tina Munim’s film Souten had been wrapped up. Apparently, the crew had returned to India from Singapore. But Tina hadn’t called Sanjay. As he got back home and reached for his liquor, he felt more and more rankled that Tina hadn’t phoned him. They had broken up but Sanjay was in denial. He said, ‘The shooting is over and everybody is back. But where is she? . . . I love her . . . I’ll never be able to live without her.’
2) Sanjay’s First Wife Richa Sharma and First Child Trishala
The movie Sanju tries to portray Sanjay as a large-hearted family man but this wasn’t always the case.
The film says that he has had 350 romantic liaisons but forgets to even mention his first wife Richa Sharma. Sanjay started having an affair with a famous co-star of his of the late 1980s and early 1990s when Richa was battling cancer.
Excerpt from Sanjay Dutt: The Crazy Untold Story of Bollywood’s Bad Boy:
Did Sanjay’s marital status weigh on Madhuri Dixit’s mind? She belonged to a conservative family and had a clean image in the media. There would surely be PR repercussions to marrying the husband of a woman who suffered through cancer only for him to leave her. But Reema Rakesh Nath, scriptwriter-director and wife of Madhuri’s secretary Rikku Rakesh Nath, said, ‘I don’t think Madhuri’s personal choice for Sanjay should come in the way of her career. Look at Hema and Dharamji. Hema has retained her dignity, despite her marriage to a much-married man.’
Ena, Richa’s sister, however, wasn’t about to give Madhuri a free pass. In an interview to CineBlitz (December 1992), she tore into her: ‘Madhuri is so inhuman . . . I mean Madhuri can get any man she wants. How can she go for a man who’s behaved in such a way with his wife? . . . I know they are good friends because he’s called her from our house. And he does talk to her brother and her sister here. But we never looked at it as if “okay the guy’s involved with Madhuri”. We’re very open, we’ve always given Sanjay his space.’
Though Richa seemed to want to work things out, Sanjay filed for divorce in early 1993. Richa was furious.
‘Where did I go wrong? I just fail to understand what he wants in life. A pretty chick who’s skinny? I believe that’s the reason why he fell for Madhuri . . . Sanju made a great boyfriend. As a husband, it was a different story.’ A bitter custody battle for Trishala ensued and there was much unpleasantness between the families.
3) Sanjay’s Sisters and Their Rocky Relationship With Manyata Dutt
Sanjay’s sisters Namrata and Priya have played critical roles in Sanjay’s life – through his years of drug addiction and jail. In spite of their closeness, they sparred with Sanjay when he became involved with Manyata. But in the film they have not been given a single dialogue.
Excerpt from Sanjay Dutt: The Crazy Untold Story of Bollywood’s Bad Boy:
Sunil sought out a small clinic in Mumbai and admitted Sanjay there for drug de-addiction therapy. He was given electrode therapy (giving mild electric shocks to a patient through electrodes attached to the head), which proved extremely painful – and ineffective.
When the treatment failed, Sanjay was transferred to Breach Candy Hospital. He recounted an episode from the hospital that seems funny on the surface but reveals the helplessness of the situation. One of his sisters was put on duty every night to help him cope with his painful withdrawal symptoms. ‘Priya who was in school . . . was on guard duty . . . I started hallucinating. I thought she was a gurkha. I said “Ae gurkha! Ae gurkha!” Priya was scared but didn’t want an altercation. She pretended to be a gurkha. She said, “Ji Sahab, bolo! Kya karne ka hai, Sahab?” I said, “Mere ko charas leke aao.” She said,“Charas nahi hai, mere paas bidi hai. Bidi maangta hai kya?”’Sanjay was right when he later said, ‘It’s not that just I was sick, the whole family was sick with me.’
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Manyata was at the centre of a Dutt family feud from the moment she stepped into Sanjay’s life. But perhaps the biggest blow to the relationship between Sanjay and his sisters was when Sanjay tried to contest the 2009 Lok Sabha elections on a Samajwadi Party ticket (he was ultimately unable to stand for the elections owing to his legal troubles). Then Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh facilitated Sanjay’s entry into the party. This must have seemed like a terrible betrayal to Priya Dutt who had followed in the footsteps of her loyal Congressman father by becoming the Congress MP from Mumbai North West. A livid Priya hit out at Sanjay: ‘For the first time since he [Sunil Dutt] died I am thankful he is no longer alive to see this ignominy.’ But that wasn’t all.
Priya said that it was Manyata who was responsible for Sanjay’s straying from the Dutt family’s political credo: ‘He is far too busy with films to find the time for politics . . . She [Manyata] manipulated my brother into this situation to further her own ambitions.’ Priya, in an attempt to distance Manyata from the Dutt legacy, continued, ‘She is not . . . the daughter-in-law of Sunil and Nargis Dutt . . . She is just some woman who has trapped my brother.’
Sanjay would later try to wrest the legacy back, roaring, ‘There’s only one Mr and Mrs Dutt on Pali Hill and it’s me and Manyata.’
4) Sanjay’s Second Wife Rhea Pillai
Rhea was a pillar of support for Sanjay when he was in jail in the 1990s and Madhuri was no longer in touch with him. In fact, he famously said, ‘Love is what Rhea did when I was in jail. The future was bleak, there was no security or commitment. But she did not let the relationship die.’ Rhea and Sanjay eventually married in 1998. But their relationship fell apart soon after.
Excerpt from Sanjay Dutt: The Crazy Untold Story of Bollywood’s Bad Boy:
In 2000, while he was still married to Rhea, rumours were rife that there was a new woman in Sanjay’s life. The woman in question? A belly dancer from Pakistan named Nadia Durrani. An article in Outlook magazine titled ‘Nadia Rides Again’ (13 September 2004) read: ‘Sanjay Dutt’s latest hit – Nadia Durrani . . . A mother of a nine-year-old son, she captured Sanju baba’s attention three years ago (yup, that’s right!) The duo were recently seen sharing a cozy meal at a Pakistani food festival in Mumbai.’ Stories of their dalliance continued and a popular film magazine even published a report about the couple’s love nest at a seven-star hotel in Mumbai. The hotel staff was on high alert to protect Sanjay and Nadia’s privacy. On one occasion, Sanjay and Nadia were seen lunching at the hotel’s Chinese restaurant, and were spotted at the same venue the next day as well.
Nadia was apparently quite smitten by Sanjay and wanted to marry him. In October 2001, Sanjay was in the US on a week-long shooting schedule for Kaante when an obsessed Nadia reportedly landed up there.
Rhea was said to be quite livid by the affair. After this incident, Sanjay apparently even promised Rhea that he would end the affair. But the Sanjay–Nadia stories didn’t stop. In fact, there were reports that Sanjay proposed marriage to Nadia in public while partying at the Bandra nightclub Poison.
‘Sanjay was at the club with Nadia and they looked extremely happy together and were seen whispering sweet nothings right through the night. Suddenly Dutt got up an[d] announced to everybody that he loves Nadia and that he intends to marry her soon.’ The crowd cheered lustily and even raised a toast to the couple.
5) Sanjay’s Saviour Bal Thackeray
It was Sunil Dutt’s political rival Bal Thackeray who lobbied for Sanjay to be given bail in 1995 – when even the Congress CM of Maharashtra Sharad Pawar and Congress PM Narasimha Rao had turned their backs on Sunil Dutt’s son.
Excerpt from Sanjay Dutt: The Crazy Untold Story of Bollywood’s Bad Boy:
As Sanjay walked out of Arthur Road Jail, the hundreds gathered there to see Bollywood’s ultimate muscleman whose physique was adored by millions saw instead an emaciated figure with thinning hair, wearing a long white kurta and jeans and a mala around his neck. Sanjay had lost eighteen kilograms in prison. Mobbed by the media, he was rushed into a convoy of cars. His first stop was the Siddhivinayak temple at Prabhadevi. Sanjay, along with Sunil, took a parikramaaround the temple and prayed in thanksgiving. It was then time to say thanks to Sanjay’s patron-in-chief. His cavalcade drove towards Matoshree.
Amidst flashing cameras, Bal Thackeray came to his front door and embraced Sanjay. They smiled and made small talk. The next morning’s papers carried a now-iconic picture of Sanjay Dutt tightly hugging Thackeray, with Sunil Dutt and Rajendra Kumar beaming besides them.
The optics of a Congressman and his son paying obeisance to ‘the tiger of Mumbai’ was great for the Shiv Sena. With all the hoopla surrounding Sanjay’s release, Sharad Pawar drily remarked, ‘It’s not as if Mahatma Gandhi has been released.’
(Yasser Usman is the author of Sanjay Dutt: The Crazy Untold Story of Bollywood’s Bad Boy, published by Juggernaut Books.)
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