Birthday: The unique story of Mithun and his pack of 'human dogs'

When Mithun Chakraborty first came to Bombay,

So he only had the National Award which he won for his performance in Mrinal Sen's 'Mrigayaa'. He had no contacts in the city of dreams and lived on the footpath and depended on food from his friends from FTII who had already established themselves and aunties from villages like Shirley Rajan in Bandra and Yari Road and sometimes with his friend Gautam Guha. Putul Guha (Parth Guha), son of veteran filmmaker Dulal Guha, who gave him a small space in his apartment in Nibhana where some other rising stars like Navin Nischol, Anil Dhawan, Vinod Mehra and Yogita Bali also shared the space.  He hardly got any work and did roles in films like 'Do Anjaane' and 'Phool Khile Hai Gulshan Gulshan'. He also did dance shows with Helen as Rana Rez, which gave him a good living. The incident where a Hindi film journalist asked him for an interview and he asked for a thali in return, as he had not eaten anything for three days, is now a famous story. He got his first B&W photograph taken by an 80 year old photographer Mr. JH Thakkar who not only did not charge him any money but also predicted a very bright future for him. Mr. Thakkar's prediction showed all signs of coming true when Mithun signed 'Disco Dancer' which was followed by many other successful films. And Mithun was called 'Gareeb ka Amitabh Bachchan' which was enough to make him go mad with happiness. Mithun got his first terrace apartment in a building called Garden View, opposite his FTII colleague Subhash Ghai's huge office 'Bashiron'. Mithun now shifted his entire family to Mumbai and they all started living together in Garden View. The family soon had a large number of dogs and he owned several dogs of almost every breed. These dogs were personally looked after by Mithun who had a large staff to look after them which included caretakers, veterinarians, dieticians and doctors from different parts of the world. Every afternoon, Mithun would take out time to take his dogs out for a walk and the whole area would go silent and even cheer. Mithun became the person who paid the highest income tax and keeping in mind his status, he found a new house for himself where he had a staff for each dog and to take care of each dog. People from different parts of the country and even the world visited Mithun’s hut in Madh Island, only to see how he takes care of his dogs. I was one of the regular visitors, even though I did not have a very cordial relationship with the dogs. And one evening I asked Mithun, the question that had been lingering in my mind. I asked him why he loved his dogs so much and his answer left me both deaf and dumb. He said, ‘These people, are much more loving than humans and the humanity that they have, cannot be in humans.’Mithun has passed on his love for dogs to his son Namashi (he is soon to make his debut as an actor) and he has 76 different breeds of dogs and he knows each of them by their first name. Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai...?

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