Memories of the Dutts 

Probably the most loved family of the Bollywood Nargis and Sunil Dutt had carved a place for themselves not only in hearts of the Nehru family because of their contribution to the public causes but also the common man whom they inspired and entertained. They were the first to reach out to the jawans in difficult situations and symbol of secularism. A welcome book written by their children and published by Roli. 

The letters written by Nargis to Sanjay,  Priya and Namrata along with some contribution by Sanjay Dutt titled, Mr and Mrs Dutt, Memories of our Parents was released last month and provides the insight to the foreboding of a mother. 

Nargis, mother of Bollywood star, Sanjay Dutt had foreseen the troubles that Sanjay would get in to and wanted her daughter Namrata to make sure that Sanjay stayed away from some of his friends whom she felt were having a bad influence on him.

"Please look after Sanju, see that he does not get mixed up with those silly boys again. He is too stupid in his head, he does not realise what he is doing and know it is going to hurt him," wrote Nargis to Anju, as Namrata is fondly called by the family, while going to US for her treatment.

Talking about the fear and pain of the realisation that she might just have to leave her family behind forever, Nargis wrote, "I am in such a mental condition, I have gone far away from all of you, and I don't know what is going to happen but I have faith in God, he is not going to be so cruel as to not send me back to all of you. I know how much all of you love me, keep praying for me that all will be well with me."

In a letter to Sanjay after he was sent to a boarding school, Nargis asking him to concentrate on his studies and keep doing well without even giving a chance to teachers to get angry at him.

"Now you have promised to do even better and I promise I will come and see you every month. You know you are our only son and we have great hopes on you. You must study hard and become a big man so that you can look after us in the old age," she wrote.

In another letter to Sanjay, she advised, "So no more crying. Pay attention in you class. There is plenty of time for you to play. Please Sanjay, be attentive in you class, you must do this much to please your mother."

Sanjay has often talked about the trauma that the family had undergone because of the demise of Nargis and how he turned to drugs to overcome his grief’s but Namrata provides much deeper insights into how the family reacted after Nargis' death.

She writes, "Dad was devastated. He couldn't sleep in their bedroom any more. We volunteered to sleep in the same room as he did, but he'd wake up in the middle of the night and leave. In a panic, we'd get up and look for him, only to discover he was lying on the sofa in the living room, having fallen asleep again. Sometimes he would go to the graveyard at four in the morning and just sit by Mom's grave. Finally we realized we had to act maturely and be strong for him. He must have felt completely alone. He must have wondered, "What am I going to do with these three children? There's no one to share my life. No one I can talk to." He had shared everything with Mom. His work, his life, everything, and now she had gone," says Namrata in the book.

She adds, "Priya and I gradually took over the running of the house. I had never entered the kitchen before, and now had to take charge. Fortunately we had a cook and staff who lived on the premises, and so the house began to function again. But the ordeal of the past few years caught up with Dad. He was overwhelmed with grief. He was unable to work or sleep. He was falling apart. Nothing made sense to him any longer. He had tried to save Mom, but failed. All the statues and images of gods and goddesses were removed from the house and immersed in the flowing seawater. We were angry with God. How could He have done this to us?"  

Another moving description in the book is of the memory of a Rakshabandhan. On that particular day Sanjay Dutt  had nothing but jail coupons to offer to his sisters when they visited him in the jail on Rakshabandhan.

"I have nothing to give you both, but I have saved these coupons for you. This is all I have," Sanjay said. "It was an extremely emotional moment and it was the first time we saw Dad break down and cry," Congress MP and Sanjay's sister Priya Dutt recalls in a forthcoming book.

Recalling the traumatic days after Sanjay's arrest in 1994 in connection with the 1993 bomb blasts, the book says while he was in prison, "we had some support at first, and then slowly people started drifting away. We were on our own till help came to us from an unlikely quarter. Balasaheb Thackeray made a public declaration saying he didn't believe any member of the Dutt family could be anti-national."

The sisters recall the days when on his return from Mauritius Sanjay was whisked away by the police from the airport and how a devastated Sunil Dutt ran from pillar to post worrying how the situation could be resolved.

On his days inside the jail in 1994, Sanjay says "Inside the prison it was crushing to look outside and see people walking about free. The cell was small. I shared it with someone. I slept on the floor and read a lot. I couldn't exercise because I wasn't in the right frame of mind to do any thing. I read the Gita and the Ramayana . I also read Mandela's book which really inspired me," he says.

The Dutt sisters recall Sanjay saying that he was being accused of being anti-national and a terrorist. "What a terrible blow to my family. I hated Dad seeing me in such conditions and constantly asked, when am I coming out? One day when Dad came to meet me, he held my shoulders and said I can't do anything," they quote Sanjay telling them.

"Untill that point in time, our family held a kind of record in as much as we never had an income tax raid, a frequent occurrence in the lives of movie stars. And now warrant had been issued to search our home. A battalion of policemen arrived with search dogs it was deeply humiliating experience". We watched as they combed every room, every cupboard. Nothing was found, the book says.

The book has been published by Roli Books and is sure to be lapped not only by the Dutt fans but readers who are interested in the twists and turns in life in general.