Remembering Nargis Dut: My Sole Encounter with the Icon

Nargis Dutt Birth Anniversary: When I look back on the forty-eight years that I have spent walking around and meeting people, one very different from the other, and as I also look back at the happenings and events I have been a witness to, I find it difficult to believe that I had seen it all, met them all and had the privilege of having life-long relationships with. That is why I sometimes wonder why I could meet a great woman like Mrs. Nargis Dutt only once and only talk to her for more than an hour one evening...

I had seen her at various functions and events organized by institutions like the Spastics Society of India of which she was a founding member and the Cancer Society of India, of which she was also a driving force. I had seen her at several meetings connected with films and film personalities. The closest I had come to was on the day Sanjay Dutt, her son was being launched in the presence of the entire industry then. She had not spoken a word to any of the guests who kept walking in at the Mehboob Studios, where her husband, Sunil Dutt, and she had arranged some kind of a one-man exhibition of black and white photographs depicting the various faces and moods of their son, Sanjay. It was a very emotional sight to see her and Dutt Sahab as he was popularly known crying with what could only be called tears of happiness which they couldn't control even after the launch function was over. Among the guests were Dilip Kumar and some of the best-known stars and filmmakers of the time, which was a sign of how very popular the Dutts were.

It was some days after this launch function that I was taken by one big surprise when Mrs. Dutt herself called me and asked me if I could meet her at their bungalow on Pali Hill. How could I say no to the woman I always wanted to meet?

I reached the bungalow at five-thirty in the evening and she was waiting for me in her famous white saree and with her best smile still left untouched by age or time. It was difficult to believe that the ‘mother India' and the woman whom Raj Kapoor with whom she had worked in seventeen films and whom Raj Kapoor called one of the founders of the R.K empire was so down to earth and had forgotten the days when she was one of the greatest female stars and had settled down to life as a housewife, the wife of Mr Dutt and their three children.

It was only after having a cup of hot tea and some of the most delicious snacks prepared under her own supervision that she started talking about what she had invited me for...

For one full hour, she only spoke about her ‘Sanju Baba'. She admitted that he was addicted to drugs and said that she was to blame for his condition to a large extent. She said she was the first to know about ‘Sanju Baba's' addiction while he was in boarding school, but out of her love for her only son, she didn't even let Mr Dutt know about it, till it was very late, and ‘Sanju Baba' had grown into an addict beyond redemption. She said,“ ‘Sanju Baba' was a very sensitive boy who needed to be taken care of and that was one of the reasons why she wanted to talk to me. She asked me to take care of her son and also said that she had been reading what I wrote and called me, “a positive writer" and requested me to overlook the weaknesses and faults of ‘Sanju Baba' and understand him and let people people understand him. “I know the power of journalists, they can make or break the most popular and talented stars. It used to happen in our times and it has grown more powerful now. I know ‘Sanju Baba' will have to fight his way out, but a little help from people like you can really do him a great deal of good, I hope you know what I as a mother want to make you understand", the lady in white told me with tears in her eyes, waiting to roll down. I had seen a mother's love for a son in action after a very long time.

We had finished talking and I couldn't say what I felt about that meeting and I was completely moved when she left me at the gate and asked her driver to drop me wherever I wanted.

She had been nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the then Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi, and wanted to do a lot for a number of causes dear to her, but she couldn't really succeed. The only time she spoke in the House of Elders was when she lashed out at the renowned filmmaker, Satyajit Ray, who she said was doing the country a very sad and sorry thing by only focusing on the poverty of the country to selling his find to the west which fetched him all the money and all the awards. Her speech criticizing Ray was received with a storm of protests and even some of her colleagues from the industry made statements against her and one of them was a very close friend of the Dutts and my guru, K.A Abbas.

She was disillusioned by her term in the Rajya Sabha and decided to concentrate on all the causes she championed and her family. ‘Sanju Baba's' first film “Rocky" was being shot at a brisk pace and Nargis was suddenly diagnosed with cancer. Dutt Sahab took her to the Sloan Kettering Hospital for Cancer in New York and spent the next three months with her in hospital. While she was in hospital too, if there was one thing she was always worried about was ‘Sanju Baba' whose addiction was growing stronger and was being seen as a threat to his new career. She kept talking and writing notes to her three children, ‘Sanju Baba', Namrata, and Priya, but the maximum notes she wrote from her hospital bed were to her ‘Sanju Baba'.

Her fight with cancer was turning out to be a losing battle and she preferred to go home and die and not be in hospital. On May 3, all her struggles and fights came to an end and she couldn't even be present at the release of “Rocky" Mr Dutt had paid her a unique tribute when he kept one of the chairs in the theatre vacant. It was a symbolic gesture to show that she was there...

‘Sanju Baba' should have listened to his mother's pleas to change, but he never could as long as she was alive. Her battle with cancer made his addiction only worse. In fact, on the morning she died, he was totally stoned and didn't even know that his mother had died even as her body was being taken to a mission Muslim cemetery in South Bombay where her mother Jaddan Bai was buried, ‘Sanju Baba' was falling a victim to some of his ‘friends who wanted him to go with them to the disco at the Sea Rock Hotel (now defunct), but was stopped by some well-wishers of the family.

Years have passed.‘Sanju Baba' is Sanjay Dutt and has lived through hell. He however gave up his addiction when he was neck deep in trouble, but when he looks back, he says it was listening to the voice of his mother and on tapes and her notes that helped him to finally kick addiction for good.