Duality works. It is also full of pain. Celluloid thrives on both. Every actor’s ultimate ambition is to explore the dark side, to leave the glorious sunlit meadows of song and dance, to venture into the stormy landscape of the actor’s Hades — the realm of cinematic evil. Sanjay Dutt has been a hero and villain, both in real life and on the screen. Whether it be as Vicky Kapoor in the 1986 hit Naam to Kancha Cheena in the latest blockbuster-of-all-time Agneepath, the 52-year-old superstar has walked both paths. Setting, rather than
just upsetting new box-office records (on its way to the Rs 100-crore mark), Agneepath has injected fresh energy into a career that has been a stormy journey through drug addiction, death, love, abandonment and political
ambition. Long-time friend and director Mahesh Bhatt calls Agneepath Sanjay Dutt’s third inning as an actor.
“He is always ready to make fresh beginnings. He knows his real life persona has given him success, but I would credit his audacity in choosing unusual roles,” says Bhatt. Bhatt has the last word, as he says, “Sanjay has the ability to resurrect himself time and again. When again he’s down, something will come up. Sanjay is destiny’s child.”
Born to screen legends Nargis and Sunil Dutt on July 29, 1959, Sanjay is Bollywood royalty; like the Khans, protected by his pedigree, he could have sailed along the temperamental tides of tinsel town’s highs and lows unscathed. But his life is the turbulent mirror of his acting career: his first film Rocky, produced by Sunil Dutt was an ill-starred venture, coinciding with his mother’s death by cancer. Dutt was devoted to Nargis: in a 2009 interview, he remarked, “There are times when I don’t feel my age at all, but there are also times when I feel like I have lived and seen more than just these 50 years. But at heart, I’ll always be my mum’s Baba.”
Bollywood’s survivor
At heart, Dutt has always been a survivor. After Rocky flopped, and his mother’s death, drug addiction and binge drinking almost ended his life and career. Sunil Dutt sent his son to America to get cleaned up. It gave Sanjay — the youngest and tallest actor ever to enter Bollywood — a fresh lease of life. He returned to Bombay after rehab, and threw himself once again under the studio lights. Hits like Daag, Kartoos and Haseena Maan Jaayegi redeemed his flawed past, and critics hailed his portrayal of the tortured Raghubhai in Vaastav as his best ever. It won Sanjay Filmfare’s Best Actor award of 2000. It was as if the actor had discovered his flow; Mission Kashmir, Baaghi, Kurukshetra and Pitaah confirmed his position in the celluloid firmament. Notoriety and heartbreak kept Dutt’s victories company alongside: his first wife, Richa Sharma, whom he married in 1987, died of cancer — just like Nargis — after giving Dutt a daughter, Trishala. His second wife, Rhea Pillai stood by him when the actor was arrested and jailed on charges of terrorism, but the marriage soon fell apart. His lady love at that time deserted him, as his film career nosedived after his incarceration. But his fans did not abandon him. When Sanjay was released from jail in 2007, the multi-starrer Dhamaal was declared a hit in a similar way that Khalnayak was in 1993. “At that point, Sanjay was not in a frame of mind to promote Dhamaal. We held a premiere to make him feel good, and the kind of reaction he received was amazing. People are affectionate towards him,” says Ashok Thakeria, the film’s producer. He feels there’s a loyal fan-following for Sanjay, which watches each of his films. “Sanjay’s presence in Dhamaal and Double Dhamaal helped the films tremendously. He works both in single screens and multiplexes. In fact, people misconstrue him to be a favourite of only the male audience because of his macho personality. He’s an equally big hit among women, who find him rugged and attractive.” Dutt has reportedly romanced most of B-Town’s leading ladies, but his marriage to former item girl Manyata is said to have steadied him. But it was also controversial; his family and friends were unhappy with his marriage to a woman with an unclear past, and it alienated him from his sisters Namrata and Priya.
Solitary and singular
But then, alienation has always escorted Dutt through life. The evil Kancha in Agneepath is a solitary villain — a monster in black, with a shaved head and a scar — who dominates a dark vista of evil, capable of murder and torture, yet revelling in gallows humour. He is a doomed colossus who quotes the scriptures as he brings about death and destruction.
Dutt is India’s Arnold Schwarzenegger — the massive biceps flexing in Agneepath is a perfect example — the man who made six-packs fashionable even before Salman Khan first took off his shirt. Dutt is also India’s First Action Hero, both as the good guy and the baddie. In fact, there is hardly any other Bollywood actor who has played such a diverse array of roles, all charged with emotional voltage: the lame poet in Saajan, the funny guy in Thaanedar, the lovable villain Munna Bhai and the gritty cop with a heart in Shootout in Lokhandwala. Now, in Agneepath, the man who gave India the term Gandhigiri, has given the finest performance of his life. And fittingly, as a psychopath who battles his own demons. “He has been acting for 32 years. He is as much today’s actor as he was in the ’90s. He will go on for another 30,” says Dharam Oberoi, his friend and CEO of his production house Sanjay Dutt Productions.
The Agneepath magic
He has gone to a height never achieved before with a blockbuster of Agneepath’s magnitude. It has come to Sanjay after a long, impatient wait. The film does nothing more than to merely remind us that Sanjay Dutt is an actor of incredible public connect, infectious charm and a larger-than-life personality. For these reasons, despite disastrous flops that punctuate his career at regular intervals—Rascals, Chatur Singh Two Star, EMI, No Problem, Blue, Luck and Kidnap among others—Sanjay’s popularity has endured. And grown. That’s why the phrase “he’s back” falls futile in Sanjay’s context. Oberoi says, “When did Sanjay Dutt ever go out of circulation? He didn’t settle down in the Bahamas or something. He’s here and as popular as ever before. Even when his films weren’t working, Sanjay was a formidable star. Just that a performance like Agneepath puts him in the limelight again.”
In a film where Hrithik Roshan, a much younger superstar, is in the lead and Rishi Kapoor in fine form, Sanjay’s performance as Kancha Cheena, bald, ungainly and a pure embodiment of all things evil, stands out. He had no hesitation in accepting such an out-and-out negative character, unlike Rishi who wasn’t certain if he wanted to play the crime lord Rauf Lala. “In retrospect, Sanjay’s excitement about Kancha Cheena proved just what the doctor ordered. He’s the kind of villain that will be remembered and ranked alongside Gabbar Singh and Mogambo,” says Oberoi. Mahesh Bhatt feels such a performance makes Sanjay a relevant actor, one who is not warped in time. “My daughter Alia found Kancha Cheena outstanding. She’s a young, aspiring actor and if she thinks this performance is genuine, it speaks about the power and pull that Sanjay has among the young audience,” observes Bhatt.
What is it that draws the audience to this star whose troubled, eventful life has no equals? “People find him as one of their own. He has no airs and is a very innocent, straightforward person. These are qualities no other hero has,” proposes Bunty Walia, producer and a friend of Sanjay’s from his Lawrence School, Sanawar, days. In that respect, Kancha Cheena is the sort of man Sanjay would be scared of in real life. “That’s not who I am,” he had remarked before. The great paradox of Agneepath, strange enough, is how different Sanjay is in real life. His friends say the Munna Bhai movies captured his true essence. “People feel his pain,” says Bhatt, “His personal story is a rather compelling one and you may agree or not, but that has played a part in his film career. Let’s face it here’s a man who was deemed an enemy of the state, and he goes on to win the heart of India as Munna Bhai. He couldn’t have done that without communicating the spirit of who he is. He’s a very simple man with basic ambitions and had never lost his connect with the common man. I would say he’s the true hero of the common man.”
A turn in his road
To wife Manyata, Sanjay is a different sort of hero. Most people close to the Dutts say it is his wife Manyata who has made Sanjay more disciplined. He has returned to regular workouts. Indulgence and binge drinking are no longer priorities. “He is definitely becoming more serious about his career. One can see that he is looking after himself and his health. He is reporting on sets on time and an overall professionalism has set in. Earlier, he was laidback but now he is totally focussed,” says trade analyst Taran Adarsh. The birth of the twins, Shahraan and Iqra, have smoothed the rough edges between him and sisters Namrata and Priya. Manyata is reportedly a control freak; partying buddies Sanjay Gupta, Suniel Shetty and others drop in less and less. Yet, his image as a “yaaroon ka yaar” seems to hold still. “He always stands up for his friends. He is like an elder brother who means no harm to you,” says Walia. Very much a part of Dutt’s inner circle, Oberoi points out, “He knows how to keep and maintain friendships. He never hurts anyone. If people have made money through him and left him, he wishes them well. He forgives very readily. Who says he has changed after marriage?”
But he has. Once known as painfully media-shy, Dutt has begun to open up now and reach out to his fans. “He is not a show-off,” says Oberoi, adding, “But he is coming out of his cocoon and connecting with people. He’s not the kind of person who will come up to you in the very first meeting and say, ‘Hey bro, what’s up.’ He takes time to get used to people.” Ashok Thakeria, who produced Dhamaal and Double Dhamaal sees a “big change” in his attitude. “Sanjay has realised the importance of marketing and if you notice, he is not interested in personal mileage, but the sort that would help his film. He promotes his films and then goes back into his shell. He won’t tom-tom his personal achievements.”
Politics and beyond
His personal achievements, however, did not fare well in politics. Sanjay’s father became a respected Congress politician after he gave up acting and his sister, Priya, is a Congress MP. The contrarian in Sanjay decided to take up another political affiliation: the Samajwadi Party. In May 2008, Sanjay declared, “I certainly desire to continue to do what my father did as a social servant, and serve people.” Seven months later, at the insistence of Amar Singh, Sanjay Dutt embarked on his political campaign in Lucknow. It was stillborn. The Supreme Court disallowed him from standing for the Lok Sabha polls on March 31, 2009 because of his conviction. However, from April 2009 to January 2010, he served as the party’s General Secretary. Today, he regrets his brief political flirtation. “It was a mistake and I have realised I’m not made for politics,” he had said.
However, Sanjay Dutt is made for Bollywood. He has stayed ahead of contemporaries like Jackie Shroff who have been reduced to two-bit roles on TV. Adarsh says, “He swings between positive and negative roles seamlessly. That shows his versatility. Also, he realised quite early that you can be a hero without being a hero. That’s why we remember films in which he played a supporting role.” Bollywood pundits claim only Anil Kapoor is a similar phenomenon. “Unlike Anil, Sanjay couldn’t go international because he lacked discipline. He just wasn’t making any effort. Now, you never know,” says Adarsh. His switch to the small screen as the host of Bigg Boss opened him up to newer possibilities and audiences, indicates Thakeria. “Television is a huge medium and Sanjay’s jump was more or less at the right time.”
Sanjay Dutt has seen both the right times and the wrong ones. He believes his education shaped his life with the Lawrence School school motto, ‘Never Give In’. Today, when he is not busy planning the third sequel Munna Bhai ki Aatma Kathaa, Sanjay Dutt is writing his autobiography. Will the man who has walked his own agneepath name it Never Give In?
Up next:
1. Ram Gopal Varma’s Department
2. Son of Sardar with Ajay Devgn
3. Satte Pe Satta remake
4. Zilla Ghaziabad with Vivek Oberoi