Wired to a grid of tubes and drips, there he was in the ICU of Mumbai’s Breach Candy hospital. And while a doctor attended to him gravely, the patient had darted an edited grin, “You’ve been naughty again.”
The doctor furrowed his thicker-than-bricks eyebrows, and sprinted out of the unit, to exhale, “Although he’s semi-conscious, he smelt the cigarette smoke on my breath.” Evening check-up done, a visitor or two was allowed into the drip zone. The patient had murmured, “Come, come. Are you well?” Some question that in an ICU unit.
Today is Sunil Dutt’s death anniversary, a peg for someone like me who has roamed Bollywood’s corridors and back alleys, to encounter a cast of characters ranging from the angelic to the diabolic and despicable. He was none of these, besides extending his métier to politics of the classic kind. Sunil Dutt was a zealot Congressman aligned to post-independence Nehruvian ideals.
Quite a few of his show business peers had moved heaven and their star ratings to join the durbar of Indira Gandhi and then Rajiv Gandhi.
For Sunil Dutt the entry ticket was easier: he had already toured war-torn zones to entertain the jawans during the Indo-China conflict, he was the darling of Mumbai’s north-west constituency and above all, he was politically correct. The entry was a breeze.
Sustaining himself in an MP seat, however, wasn’t – perhaps often precipitating emergency ambulance rides to the hospital.
The Beginnings in Tinsel Town
Born in Khurd a Jhelum district now in Pakistan, Balraj Dutt – altered to Sunil presumably to avoid confusion with Balraj Sahni – the tall, pleasant man with a loopy grin wasn’t ever rated the most accomplished of actors though. He could never equal the statures of Dilip Kumar or Raj Kapoor, or come close to the hysterical adulation commanded by Rajesh Khanna and subsequently Amitabh Bachchan. Don’t even bring up the current hegemony of the Khans.
Arguably, Sunil Dutt’s most expert performances are to be evidenced as a repentant dacoit in Mujhe Jeene Do (1963), and as a partially paralytic yokel in Khandan (1965). I was in my knee pants during his prime years: Sunil Dutt as an actor was likeable. At most, he did a ‘good job’ but couldn’t achieve greatness.
As a director he was inconsistent, even aspiring towards a solo acting shtick in Yaadein (1964), incarnating an indiscreet man abandoned by his family. An artsy attempt that, which fetched him the National Award but went Titanic at the cash counters. Re-watch it today on DVD – it is at best a curiosity piece. As for the Rajasthan desert-located Reshma aur Shera (1971) – a riff on Romeo and Juliet – Jaidev’s excellent music score is more precious than its romantic shenanigans.
The Other Chapter in Dutt’s Life: Politics
Was I a Sunil Dutt tracker? Frankly, no. There were other actors to marvel at.
Moreover, like it or not, politics can be off-putting. So now, the star MP is off on a headline-grabbing padayatra, is he? Oh, so the Manmohan Singh-led government has anointed him Union minister for youth affairs and sports. And what do you know? He has been elected MP in the general elections for the fifth time in a row. This Establishment walla must b edoing something right.
A vanilla kurta and a pearly smile had become his uniform, in stark contrast to the black leather-jacketed baddy in yet another oddity, Geeta Mera Naam (1974). Show business and politics are indeed stranger-than-fiction bedfellows.
A Crusading Father, a Loyal Friend
Admittedly, it was Sunil Dutt without an agenda, who was spectacularly impressive. Avuncularly, he had poured his heart out to me in a sunless office, when he was struggling to rescue the joy and bane of his life, Sanjay Dutt. At first, the wild child had to be cured of drug abuse. And then, somehow, the son had to be bailed out of prison for serious allegations linked to the 1992-93 Mumbai communal riots.
The crusading father showed me the stacks of correspondence, requesting clemency. Avoiding eye contact, he had said,“First the boy lost his mother to cancer, then his wife, and now even the girl he is in love with wants nothing to do with him.” That statement, alluding to Madhuri Dixit, I chose not to print. It would have added fuel to the fire raging over the arrest of his unstable son.
The loop had gone out of Dutt Sr’s smile,he was as tired as a soldier in the trenches.
Vacuously, I had mumbled, “I don’t know howI can help you, sir.” Yet he would infallibly mail me a registered letter on my birthday, the many typing errors corrected in ink pen. When I quit a media house, he hosted a dinner for my friends, embarrassing me with a full-throated rendition of, “For he’s a jolly good fellow.”
Ouch, I certainly wasn’t. I couldn’t write a word ever in defense of his imprisoned son. That would have been out of turn. Yet when Sanjay was released, he insisted that his son do his first interview with me, not because of my skills at Q&A, but for the fact that the newspaper I worked with would fetch maximum exposure. That was only human.
In addition, he had posed for the paper’s magazine section with his two daughters, son and grandchildren, all in denim blue. “Achha lagega na? Colours coordinated!”
The loop in the smile was back.
An Ode to a Legend
The last hurrah of Dutt saab, as he was called by one and all, was in Munnabhai MBBS (2003), in which he stood ramrod before the gaze of the camera. He passed away quietly soon after, following a heart attack.
So whenever I come across that nicotine-addicted doctor, there’s a twinge of regret. His patient was an extraordinary one, stoic even when in pain. Not that it matters, but the anniversary has served as a peg for me, to say that.
And it allows me also to add a familiar but honest line: they don’t make them like Sunil Dutt anymore.
(Sunil Dutt wore many hats, being highly accomplished both on and off screen. On the occasion of his death anniversary, The Quint is republishing this piece from its archives, originally published in 2015.)
(The writer is a film critic, filmmaker, theatre director and weekend painter.)
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