Everyone Loves A Bit Of Sanjay Dutt

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Everyone Loves A Bit Of Sanjay Dutt.

Tomorrow morning breakfast at Candies. I know at least three reporters in various news channels in Mumbai who would be licking their lips tonight thinking of the super fresh sandwiches and rolls at Candies, that ever popular eatery at Pali Hill a pebble toss away from the home of Dilp Kumar, the apartment of the ever elusive Aamir Khan (where on the ground floor lives the very polite artist Jitish Kallat) and of course Imperial Heights, where on the top floors of one of the most imposing buildings in this rich and famous neighbourhood, of shade-filled, tree-lined lanes and Hindi film gossip (never call it Bollywood here), lives a man called Sanjay Dutt, along with his sister Priya and her husband.

The sister is important. If anyone has taken the place of Sunil Dutt in Sanjay's life, it must be Priya, who has also taken up her father's role as a Congress politician. She is his pillar of support in this, his darkest hour, just like Sunil Dutt stood by his errant son so many years ago. Will Sanjay be sent to jail again? For weapons he allegedly hid and then destroyed. The special TADA court which earlier declared that Dutt was not a 'terrorist' (which is why he is only being tried under the relatively easier Arms Act rather than TADA) has also handed out a dozen death sentences since then. That judgement was a great victory for Sanjay who has always insisted, as did his late father, that he is not a terrorist.

After the judgement, he said his father would have been happy, is happy wherever he is. That boosted the confidence of the Dutt camp. It made them confident that this man who has spent more than a year in prison and now faces a jail term of 5 - 10 years will be spared from a sentence. He is 47. He has led as decent a life a film star can in the years after he was released from prison. If he is put away again, it puts a big question mark on his career, and this at time when he is perhaps more popular (post the Munnabhai films) if not powerful in Hindi cinema than ever before. Movies are planned on his burly shoulders.

Will he go to court again in his famous, lucky blue shirt again? Will he go to Siddhivinayak, as he has so many times before, to pray to the benevolent god whose name is invoked everytime a venture starts in this great city? Will he go to court in his usual white Honda Accord? With a battalion of lawyers and friends?

Already in Delhi, his lawyers are ready to move the Supreme Court if he is sentenced. They want him to be out minutes after (if) he is sentenced.

But even if he is out on bail again, it will be a big blow for the man who is reported to have locked himself in his room for the most of part of the last week. He has already applied for relief under the Probation of Offenders Act, asking to be let off for good behaviour.

Now in Mumbai, there are two schools of thought on the Dutt trial.

1. Jail Dutt - This one argues that Dutt must be put away again, even if just to send out a strong, strong message that the long arm of law spares no one. It fights the argument that he was (many say is) a impulsive, simple man who made a stupid mistake, kept bad company, that he is basically a good, honest man who wanted to protect his family after the Mumbai riots. It argues why was he scared? His family was and is one of the leading families of Bollywood, his father was a Congress politician with enormous goodwill, why was he scared? Who was he trying to protect? Also, this POV argues, the one who carried the gun to the Dutt bungalow was sentenced under TADA, the one who hid it was sentenced under TADA but Dutt, who asked for the weapon and asked for it destruction got away. No TADA for him. Is this fair? Is he being let off because he is who he is? Is he being let off - remember last time when he was in prison his father had to knock the door of Bal Thackeray to help free his son - because his sister is a politician, the Congress is in power at the Centre and the state? This is the point of view argues that Dutt must be punished, he must serve another prison sentence if the law is fair. It says Dutt must be made an example in an industry and among the rich and famous that if you keep bad company, if you swim with the dons, you sink with them, in fact you sink even without them.

2. Free Dutt - This POV says, and let's be fair this is, for good or bad, fair or not, the overwhelming opinion about Dutt today, that Dutt has suffered enough for one bad mistake. He has paid his dues for being a silly, young, impulsive man. Enough damage has been done to him, his psychological state (imagine a man who knows he wasn't part of the conspiracy to murder hundreds but accused of it, as he would naturally think, in millions of minds), his family name and the memory of his kind, popular, many would say great, late father. It argues that Dutt is clearly not a terrorist. He may have had some bad friends at some point but he is not an anti-national but no one in that family which enjoys enormous goodwill (Priya today is a fairly popular politician) can really be a terrorist. Many people believe that Sanjay, who had a history of drug abuse, is essentially a wild child, for many years enamoured with life on the edge. He made many wrong choices, this was one of them and he has suffered for that. His career was almost ruined the first time he went to prison (the success of Khalnayak was a fluke and his arrest helped but everyone who believed then that it was all an act to boost the film were clearly wrong) and over the years he has once again painstakingly built it back. With the Munnabhai films and his association with Sanjay Gupta, Dutt is a top star again, able to command a top price and plum projects. If he goes back to prison, how much of that will stay when this 47-year-old actor returns?

Which side am I on? That's a tough one. Like in so many things, the truth about Sanjay Dutt will be somewhere in between the two POVs. I frankly don't think he is a terrorist but I also don't think that he should, if he is, get away because of his family name, contacts and star status.

So which side are you on? Do tell me and tomorrow if you happen to catch me on air, talking about him and his blue shirt outside his house, know that this reporter is as confused about Dutt as perhaps you. And is happy to accept that. Journalists don't need to take sides all the time (though I mostly do). If nothing else, there will be a lot of attention once again on Dutt and no matter which way this case turns, remember that this is a epochal moment for the film industry's ties with the underworld. What happens to Dutt will, from now, always determine how the mafia-movie association will be viewed.

It will also change the way we look at our stars. This is a troubled star. A star who was punished and has lived under that shadow ever since. All the goodness of Munnabhai cannot change that. This, this case, this judgement, this crime or innocence, will be determine how Sanjay Dutt is remembered. This is what, if not literally, metaphorically be his epitaph.