Sanjay Dutt: A man most would love to hate, but are unable to do so

The first thing you notice is that this biography of Sanjay Dutt is culled from articles printed over the decades. Except for interviewing Mahesh Bhatt extensively and Sanjay himself briefly, it has been put together deftly if I may say so, from sources already existing. But it doesn’t harm the book at all.

Yasser Usman has managed a very crisp, easy to read book.The reader may wonder at times at the passion it requires to collect or source out write ups on the Dutts for so many decades but he explains this when he reveals that his father was a Sunil Dutt fan.

As you read you realise that you know most of what has formed the content of this book. Makes one realise that all of us have followed Sanjay’s life with avid interest.

But the way Usman brings out the two contradictory facets of his personality is interesting. The bad boy who is compelled to break rules, to not follow the conventional path, to shrug off limits imposed on him and the naïve almost innocent, certainly ignorant boy who is so much a mama’s boy that even the world coddles and mothers him.

For an actor who was never very good in his chosen profession he managed to do well for himself because his emotions came across as honest; everyone invested in his honesty and loved him for it. He is actually one of his kind in that the audience was always waiting to take him back with open arms whatever his trespasses and however numerous his comebacks.

Sanjay started drinking, smoking and doing drugs very early. His fascination for guns didn’t help. He was sent to boarding school to be disciplined, but here too he continued his indulgences.

What ends up surprising the reader is the fact that Sanjay only caused grief to his family. It was as if he just wasn’t capable of giving them the joy they hoped for, through him. Nargis figured out his addiction, his lies though she couldn’t initially believe it and in her frustration often said that he would kill her.

Though he was extremely dependent on her, he continued giving her grief. After her death when he agreed to go to rehab, he kept slipping up and it

was his mother’s recorded tapes admonishing him and beseeching him to be good that made him turn the corner.

Readers are acquainted with almost every twist and turn in Sanjay’s life. It was Sunil Dutt who kept a low profile mostly and this book is as much about Nargis and Sunil Dutt as it is about Sanjay. Their total involvement in his life, total concentration in trying to help him overcome his bad habits and later in trying to get him out of jail for the possession of arms shows how much of their life he took up till they lived and then passed on the baton to his sisters whose life has been equally entangled in his very dramatic one.

Sanjay’s addiction to drugs is as prolific as his addiction to women. He seemed to fall in love at the drop of a hat and cared little for the broken pieces he left behind after each relationship. Usman brings this out so that you see Sanjay both as a self-absorbed human being but also a little boy looking for attention. At his father’s death seeing the crowd gathered he remarked, “I didn’t know my father was such a great man”, showing how little heed he paid to Sunil Dutt’s contribution to lives other than his own.

Yet surprisingly there is nothing that you can dislike about Sanjay Dutt.That is the dilemma one faces. He is not deliberately going out to hurt people.He is just being his naïve, irresponsible often thoughtless self.

There are comic moments in the book too. Sanjay sent a petition for leniency to the President of India, a serious letter explaining his suffering… and signed off the letter with ‘cheers!’ Or again when it was alleged that Sanjay knew that terrorists were planning to blow up the Bombay Stock Exchange, Shatrughan Sinha retorted “Don’t be ridiculous.He doesn’t even know what a stock Exchange is!”

On the other hand he is generous to a fault, extremely loyal to friends, always ready to help. To call Sanjay an enigma would be to make him more complicated and complex than he probably is.

The author brings this out very clearly. It may sometimes seem as if there is nothing but unpleasant episodes in Sanjay’s life but the truth is, it’s been a difficult life for him and his loved ones. He just has some growing up to do. There’s time yet.

This Sanjay Dutt biography is a journey down nostalgia lane, satisfying a three-way audience, fans of Sanjay, fans of Sunil Dutt and fans of Nargis Dutt.

The Crazy Untold Story of Bollywood’s Bad Boy; Published by Juggernaut Books; Price: ₹499