DHAKAD DUTT SAHAB KI BEDHADAK BETI, PRIYA... BY ALI PETER JOHN

In all my life, I have seen many brave and courageous men, but I've yet to see someone as brave as Sunil Dutt, a man who has shown his bravery on all fronts, whether it is spending time with the jawan, whether it is in his efforts to fight against cancer, leprosy and any other disease and the most dangerous disease of poverty and hunger - Ali Peter John

It goes entirely to his credit that even his wife, Nargis and his younger daughter Priya Dutt followed him and his dedication to the service of mankind.....

It was in the early eighties or a little later that the Dutt family had moved into ‘Apsara Apartments' which was close to the bungalow of Dilip Kumar and Saira Baby. They had a reason to shift, their own bungalow was being demolished and being renovated in certain places.

Sunil Dutt who loved good food invited me to lunch at their fifth floor apartment. We were having a sumptuous lunch which was both cooked and served to us by Priya, Dutt's younger daughter.

The father kept looking at his daughter with both anxiety and pride. She was growing into a pretty and strong woman and when we had almost finished lunch, Dutt sahab looked at me and then looked at Priya and told me,“Ali, mujhe iss ladki ki bahut fikrr lagi rehti hai. Yeh kya karegi aage aur mere saath kab tak rahegi? Iski toh mujhe shaadi karani padegi jaldi se".

Some years past. Priya was a brave, bold and beautiful young woman and Dutt sahab was a respected politician and a social worker ready to face any kind of challenge or crisis in the country.

Dutt sahab was obsessed with the idea of going on a pilgrimage from Hiroshima to Nagasaki in Japan to raise his voice against nuclear warfare and to serve the victims of radiation which was still rampant not only in Japan, but in different parts of the world.

Dutt sahab was making preparation for his march when Priya told him that she too would like to join him and Dutt Sahab reluctantly gave her permission. And once the march began in Nagasaki, Dutt Sahab had very little to worry about because Priya had taken charge of the march and was by her father's side all through the risky, painful and even controversial march which had become the center of all discussions all over the world.

The march became a landmark and Priya had received a new life with the courage, the fire and the fighting spirit if her father.

Mrs Indira Gandhi was brutally assassinated by her own guards outside her residence and there was an upheaval all over the country and especially in Punjab where thousands of Sikhs were massacred and the new prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had the temerity to say,“ek bada ped gir jaata hai toh.......".

Dutt sahab felt that it was the right time to take out a padh yatra from Bombay (it was not Mumbai then) to Amritsar and the Golden temple.

Priya loved the cause, but more than a cause she naturally loved her father and instantly took a decision to join her father's padh yatra for peace.

I still find it difficult to believe how the father and his daughter walked all the way to the holy temple and how Priya took charge of the health of not only her father, but the entire team who had walked with them.

The scenes of Priya playing the real life nurse and taking care of the rotting and bleeding feet of her father is still fresh in my mind and I still feel proud that I knew her as her father's favorite daughter, who he was worried about that afternoon and who had now wiped out all his fear and worries about his daughter. Priya had grown into a replica of her father.

Priya's next big challenge came when her brother Sanjay Dutt was involved in the Mumbai bomb blasts and the guns controversies together with his being involved in the drugs controversy.

Her father had resigned as the MP from Mumbai and was totally involved in getting his son out from the shackles he had got into. It was once again a time when Dutt sahab needed a strong emotional support and once again he found that support in his as brave as ever daughter, Priya.

The Sanjay Dutt controversies and other pressures had taken a heavy toll on the life if Dutt sahab. The congress government got him appointed as a Union Minister of state for sports, he was not very happy with the post, but he did his duty to the best of his abilities.

He was attending an event in Kanpur one evening and he flew back to Mumbai the same night and entered his bedroom at Imperial Heights which had come up in the place where he and Nargis had their bungalow more than fifty years ago stood and was now nowhere.

He asked his Man Friday not to wake him up in the morning as he was very tired. That morning however didn't come. Dutt sahab had died in his sleep after suffering a massive heart attack.

After the initial mourning period, Priya took over all the responsibilities of her father and politicians from the congress party who first wanted Sanjay Dutt to take the place of his father had to back Priya and she proved that she was not just a sweet and pretty woman, but that she could also be an iron woman when challenged.

Priya won the elections to the Lok Sabha from her father's seat and won it with a thumping majority each time. But like all the other powerful politicians, especially of the congress, she too was swept away by the mighty Maha Modi wave in 2016. Her work as a social worker with a conscience and the will to work for the betterment of the people continues.

AUR AGAR AAJ DUTT SAHAB KAHI SE DEKH RAHE HONGE WOH BEINTEHAA KHUSH HONGE AUR EK BAAR PHIR MUJHE KHAANE PE BULAATE.