When Sunil Dutt was a young man, he was addressed as ‘chote Diwan saab’ in his village in Khurd, Pakistan. This was a society where one’s social standing was defined by the family they came from, and Sunil had indeed lived a sheltered, safe life but before he knew it, the blanket that had protected him from the ruthless world was snatched away during the Partition. If this were a different world, perhaps, Sanjay would have grown up as ‘chote Diwan saab’ too, but life had other plans for him. Sunil gradually established himself in the movies, and went on to become one of the most influential figures in Indian cinema and politics. So when he saw his son getting handcuffed in front of his eyes, the once ‘chote Diwan saab’ felt like whatever ‘izzat’ he had earned all his life, was turning into dust.
Sunil Dutt was a devoted father to his son Sanjay Dutt, who was not an easy child to handle. When he started smoking at 9, Sunil put his foot down and sent his son to boarding school, which he later believed was the cause behind many of his troubles. “A child gets independent at boarding school. And when he comes back, he doesn’t want to listen to his parents,” said Sanjay in an interaction with Simi Garewal as he recalled what possibly got him into drugs. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Sanjay was the poster child for the boy born with a silver spoon who had made one bad decision after another. A drug addict, who started using in his college days and got increasingly worse after his mother Nargis’ death in 1981, Sanjay’s life was spinning out of control.
Sanjay had two younger sisters, Namrata and Priya, and Sunil had once shared that his daughters were “docile” but his son was “aggressive” in their formative years. Sunil believed that Sanjay’s drug habit got worse after his mother’s death because he could not handle the shock of her passing. “People sometimes kill themselves when they are going through such things,” said Sunil in a conversation on Aap Ki Adalat, implying that he chose to focus on the silver lining. He was proud that his son was willing to fight his demons, and he was there to support him throughout.
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Sunil Dutt and Nargis with children Namrata, Priya and Sanjay. (Photo: Sanjay Dutt/Instagram)
Sanjay, in the same chat with Simi, had shared that he once woke up after being passed out for over 48 hours and at this point, he knew he would die if he continued like this. He went up to his father, and asked for help. “One day he came to me. He said ‘Papa, I want to stop using drugs’. I said I am with you,” Sunil said this like it was his duty to get his son out of this mess, no questions asked. But his troubles did not end there. When Sanjay was arrested as he was believed to be involved in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, Sunil felt that his life’s work was vanishing before his eyes.
“They were handcuffing him and I felt like whatever I had done for my country, for my people, it was all futile. I tried to control my emotions, I was about to break down but then Sanju held my hand and said ‘Dad, don’t worry. This is all routine work.’ And I thought ‘look at him, handling all of this so maturely’. I felt very proud of the boy,” he said in an interview with Simi in 2001. By the early 1990s, Sunil had become a popular politician who stood for peace amid the communal hatred that had started to consume the country. He walked from Mumbai to Amritsar in the late 1980s during militancy in Punjab, was actively advocating for peace after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, was actively working towards caring for cancer patients who could not afford the treatment and was seen as a key figure. in the Congress. For the man who must have dreamed of leaving an unblemished legacy, this was a scaring moment but the trusting father that he was, he believed in his son.
Years later, when Sunil was asked why he called Sanjay back from Mauritius in April 1993 to surrender, he had a simple answer. “Because we are honest people,” he told Rajat Sharma. When asked about the political push and pull of the era, hinting at a political game, Sunil maintained his dignity and said that he only blamed his own “kismat” for everything that had transpired. “I was performing my duty as a father. You can ask me if I was a dutiful father or not, I can answer that,” he said and added, “I think that my fate is to be blamed for whatever happened. Honi ko kaun taal sakta hai? It must have been written that my son would go to jail. I suffered through it. What will I get out of blaming others?”
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Sanjay Dutt with father Sunil Dutt. (Photo: Express Archives)
Sunil was the rock who held his family together as his son stayed in jail for months on end. He drove his car around the prison boundary so his son could feel his father’s presence. He spent sleepless nights wondering how his son slept on the cold hard floor of jail. Sanjay could see his father going through one of the hardest phases of his life. At one point, Sunil would go and see Sanjay in the prison every day just to motivate him to get through one more day. “I would ask him ‘Dad, kab hoga?’ and he would say ‘Kal ho jayega’. And this went on for 3-4 months. One day, I broke down and said, ‘When?’ He held me by the collar and he had tears in his eyes and he said ‘Sanju, I can’t do anything for you anymore. I just can’t. I’m sorry son, I can’t,” Sanjay recalled in an interview in 2006, soon after his father’s death.
Sanjay’s life tested him every few years but Sunil had to go through those tests along with his son. When Sanjay got clean after spending two years at a rehabilitation facility, he wanted to stay in the US but Sunil, who believed that one’s respect outlives them, called his son back to Mumbai. “Dad said come back for my respect and so I did,” Sanjay recalled in the same interview.
Sunil Dutt passed away in 2005 at age 75.
When Sunil Dutt passed away in 2005 at 75, Sanjay was yet to get a clean chit for the 1993 Mumbai blasts. But Sunil had seen his son through quite a lot until then. He had to stay a hands-on father until his last breath and he did so believing it to be his duty. Like most parents, he loved his children but he wasn’t blinded by that love. He recognized that his son may not be society’s idea of an ideal man but that never stopped him from supporting him. Sunil was once asked about the happiest moment of his life and the actor said, “The only time you get complete happiness is when you lie down forever. I don’t remember any moment of happiness but I remember lots of moments of satisfaction.” Perhaps, he found his happiness after he crossed over to the other side because in his lifetime, his struggles never ended.
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