Stumbler Sanjay Dutt tries imitating Dad

New Delhi: The hugely respected actor turned politician Sunil Dutt was known and respected for his principles and his simple yet righteous lifestyle. In stark contrast, his equally charismatic and successful actor son Sanjay Dutt has had a life chequered with run-ins with the law and controversies regarding his personal life.

Father and son could not be more different say many.

"My son is not a terrorist," Sunil Dutt kept repeating till he died in 2005. When the TADA court did finally echo those words, Dutt senior was no longer alive.

"That was what my father waited for 13 years to hear. He would have just put his head down and cried if he were hear today," confided Priya Dutt, one of the two daughters of Sunil and Nargis Dutt. This was right after the verdict in 2007.

While Sunil Dutt was well known as an actor, politician and social worker, his wife - the late Nargis Dutt was known for her social work after she gave up the world of grease-paint post marriage.

A Congress loyalist, Dutt Sr had joined active politics in the early 90s, becoming an MP and then a cabinet minister.

Today, as son Sanjay Dutt tries to claim his father's legacy from sister Priya Dutt, one wonders if it's too late. Filling into Dad's shoes always seemed too big for Sanjay to fill. His addiction to drugs was the first in a series of blows to the Dutt family image. Luckily, Dad was always around with a rehabilitation plan and Dutt Jr successfully gave up drugs.

"Just my father putting his arm around me was soothing," admitted Sanjay.

In films, Sanjay preferred to play the bad boy while Sunil Dutt (with the exception of Mother India invariably played the honest, upright hero. Sanjay's troubled personal relationships and two failed marriages contrasted with Sunil Dutt's own steady, unflappable family life. But it was Sanjay's name being involved in the 1993 bomb blasts that was the biggest blow to the Dutt family.

"There have been a series of ups and downs, something always happens to break the peace. It is either some illness, or the courts," Sunil Dutt had tried to put a finger on what ailed calmer times in their lives.

Sunil Dutt took a break from politics to focus on saving Sanjay but as Sanjay's links with the underworld unraveled, the effort did take its toll.

Sunil Dutt had said in year 2000, "The only fear I have is losing myself. If you don't have yourself, then you have nothing."

Sunil Dutt's work is being carried on by daughter Priya Dutt who has been elected to Dutt's own constituency.

As Sanjay Dutt readies for a political career on the Samajwadi Party ticket and by shunning the Congress, many ask if he is once again rebelling against his father?

Can Sanjay's newfound Munnabhai image whitewash his past and allow him to embrace his father's legacy. Many feel that the actor is also a pretender in real life, unlike his father who meant, did and stood for what was always right.

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