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Sunday, February 1, 2004 |
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Sunday, February 1, 2004 |
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As the goofy, do-gooder goon in Munnabhai MBBS, Sanjay Dutt gets his first solo hit in almost a decade. He plays a Quixotic small-time toughie, superbly supported by his Sancho Panza, Arshad Warsi, who in turn discovers a formidable foil in Boman Irani’s by-the-book dean of a medical college. Dutt is being appreciated for revealing his funny bone, usually reserved for the no-brainer movies starring Govinda and directed by David Dhawan. As he drawls in his trademark Mumbaispeak, the 44-year-old actor can be pardoned for playing countless gangster roles and more recently, sleepwalking through J.P. Dutta’s war movie, LoC — Kargil. "I identify with Munnabhai’s character a helluva lot," says Dutt, who tends to be tongue-tied like Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff and Sunny Deol during interviews. "That’s what I am. I have a sense of humour and like my character, I give jhappies (hugs) to everyone." Significantly, it was not Dutt but Shah Rukh Khan who editor-turned-director Rajkumar Hirani had in mind while going about casting for Munnabhai MBBS. When Khan’s back surgery threatened to delay the film, producer Vinod Chopra suggested Dutt as they had worked together earlier in Mission Kashmir. But Hirani had his reservations as Dutt still stands accused for the 1993 Bombay blasts conspiracy and the case is fast approaching judgement. "In the initial days, he was tense and pre-occupied with the court proceedings and did not seem to be paying attention to script narrations", recalls the debutant director. Chopra, however was confident about the casting and had backed the film on this basis: "The moment I heard the script, I knew Sanjay would fit into the role. He is really Munnabhai MBBS. He is a good-hearted goon. He is a guy who wants to do good." Among his other admirers, there is producer Sanjay Gupta who describes Dutt as Bollywood’s patron saint of machismo. "Take any trend, from smoking Marlboros and wearing cowboy suits to driving SUVs (sports utility vehicles), Sanju has done them all." Of course, there are many in Bollywood who still view him as an overgrown, confused kid, a tragic and insecure figure who has not come to terms with his mother’s death. Others plead his defence. "He doesn’t even know what a stock exchange is", Shatrughan Sinha famously responded to Dutt’s chargesheet in the bomb blasts case. Detractors call the high school dropout the founder president of Bollywood’s bad boys club — the only other member being Salman Khan who has matched him in controversy. It has not helped that Dutt’s marriage to Rhea Pillai is believed to have ended as he is rumoured to be dating a woman known as Nadia. Dutt does not bother to explain. Neither has he cared to angle for roles, nor hog the limelight — one of the reasons why a paranoid Govinda agreed to work with him in Ek Aur Ek Gyarah. But with the bags under his eyes giving way and a hairline receding northward, the star has said his goodbye to the cantaloupe-chested action hero who used to do a bar-bending 500-pound bench press to maintain his 100 kg frame. "There was no way I could fit into the Munnabhai character with a body like that", he confesses. "I had to shed over 15 kilos, eat right and focus on cardio-vascular exercises. My days of partying and late nights are over". Nevertheless, he can be seen these days in some of Mumbai’s swankiest nightspots in the company of his teenage daughter, Trishala, who has joined him from the USA after eight years. "She is growing up so fast and is so beautiful", he says like a proud father. "I have dreams for my daughter", he continues. "She has no choice but to be a doctor. I know she won’t let me down. She is deeply focussed on her studies. I know she wants to do medicine. Our interests may be very different, but I am sure we can find things to bridge the gap". Like celebrating the
success of Munnabhai MBBS! |
