The 18th century warrior king lived and died by the sword. But for the crew and cast who were working to bring him to life in a TV serial, it ended in a different, more horrifying ordeal: fire. A blaze engulfed Premier Studios in Mysore, where actor-director Sanjay Khan was shooting a tele-serial based on Bhagwan Gidwani’s historical novel The Sword of Tipu Sultan. The toll: 42 dead. Sanjay himself was trapped in the fire and like a true captain waited while most of the crew rushed out before he staggering out badly burnt.
Later on he reflects: ‘In my solitary moments, left alone with my consciousness, thoughts and vulnerabilities, I truly wasn’t sure if I would survive… I truly felt like a small insect trapped within a huge vertical cylinder, whose sides had been greased… all I wanted to do was fly out of that cylinder like a bird and join humanity again.’
And flying out was after 75 operations and many an intervention later. Bravely he returned to finish the remaining episodes. That to me remains the biggest takeaway of this autobiography. Of course, you get to meet the world’s rich and the famous.
There’s the sultans of Arabia; kings and queens and politicians too. There’s the Prime Minister of Mauritius, who promises to give Sanjay Khan a 100-acre beach-fronted property on a token lease of `1 lakh a year. Why didn’t he take up the offer? He’s still grappling with that one. Sanjay campaigned in the 1991 general elections travelling over 800 km. As a reviewer, I found it rather odd that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, with the largest majority that any party has had in Indian democracy, is done and dismissed in 17 lines.
We go on to meet the four stalwarts of Pakistani politics: the debonair Imran Khan who’d send fans into a frenzy; Nawaz Sharif who was the black sheep of his family; and then there’s Asif Zardari, a bachelor in his 12-yard Balochi salwar who went on to marry Benazir Bhutto.
Why didn’t Sanjay Khan take the plunge into politics and why did he remain content to hover around the edge? Conscious of this enigma, he takes you back to a scene from David Lean’s masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence has led the Arab army in triumph to Damascus. In a deserted town is seated a tribal leader. Lawrence looks at his friend and asks, ‘Since the war is over, what are you going to do my friend?’ There is a brief pause and the friend replies, ‘I think I will take up politics.’ ‘Don’t you think it’s a lowly profession?’ asks Lawrence. Maybe that would have been not the best, but the biggest mistake of his life.