YEH MERE KUTTE INSAAN SE ZYAADA WAFAADAAR HAIN

Ali Peter John

I remember meeting Mithun as a struggler walking around with some photographs and his first national award from studio to studio and from office to office looking for work as an actor, accompanied by a man called Dinesh Patil who had a flour mill in Bandra East and worked as a part time PRO even though he did not know a word of English. Mithun was being rejected by all the big film makers who were not used to seeing a tall and dark young man (Raj Kapoor had once even called him a purple hero) and he kept his struggle going till he did a film called "Disco Dancer" and then there was no looking back for him.

The young man from Calcutta who was supposed to be a Naxalite who was running away from a net spread out to get him dead or alive had soon become a major star and had even taken some of the best men from Rajesh Khanna to be on his staff had bought a posh apartment in a building called Garden View and had some of the best cars which included his dream brand of car, the original model of a Mercedes. He lived with his family.

But the highlight of his new house were more than a dozen dogs of every breed and from different parts of the world. He once invited me to his house and as if to test my courage, he got all the ferocious dogs to surround me on all sides. I had very bad experiences with dogs but tried to pretend as if I was not scared of Mithun's army of dogs who could have pounced on me and I would have been dead, but they seemed to be very well trained by their master. Mithun came down and all the dogs stood up and shook their large and strong trails and had that look of gratitude in their eyes. Mithun introduced me to every dog and made me shake their hands and I shook their paws even though I was shaking all over myself. Mithun then took some of them for a walk with him dressed as a cowboy in a loongi. Every dog and human being on that road made was for Mithun and his faithful friends to walk as freely as they wanted to. Mithun looked like a strange commander who was leading his brigade.

His dogs had a team of men to look after all their needs, which included trained dieticians and veterinarians and maids to take care of all their daily needs. His dogs soon became the talk and even the terror in the industry.

Mithun moved up in life and built his own cottage in Madh Island close to the cottage of Subhash Ghai. He had taken special care of having kennels for every dog and the kennels were as big as a one bed room flat which was the well-furnished house for every friend (dog) of his. There were more than forty dogs at any given time and they literally lived a royal life. I once asked Mithun why he was showering his dogs with so much love and care and his answer is still fresh in my mind. He had said, "Yeh kutte Insaan se bahut zyaada wafaadaar hote hain. Maine bahot insaanon ko jhela hai lekin ek bhi Insaan mujhe wafaadaar aaj tak nahi mila. Isliye socha ki inn kutton ko hi apna bana lu. Yeh kam se kam Insaan k jaise dhoka to nahin denge"

Mithun had to shift to Ooty because of some major differences he had with a very powerful leader whom he once called "Daddy". He built his own palace which was a 5 star hotel and also his bungalow in which he lived with his wife Yogeeta Bali, sons Mahakshay and Namashki and their adopted daughter Dishani. He had also started his own parallel industry which worked under the rules made by him.

But, in the midst of all that was changing around him, he didn't forget his love for his faithful friends he had forty dogs when he was in Bombay, he had more than a hundred different breeds of dogs in Ooty.

At 70 (he turned 70 on June 16th), he is still the monarch of all he surveys, but basically he is the same Mithun who once walked the roads of Bombay, sometimes without any home to go to or any food for days together, but today he has everything that a real monarch can envy, but his love for his faithful friends (dogs) grows stronger than ever....

I have seen other lover of dogs, but Mithun jaisa aaj tak maine kutton ko itna pyaar karnewala koi nahi dekha.

And talking about dogs reminds me of so many bungalows of stars and super stars who have large boards outside reading "Beware of dogs" and I have tried to find where the scary dogs were and to my dismay and amusement, I have found that there were no dogs anywhere and the boards outside were only to scare cowards away. These boards have sometimes made me so angry that I have seen the hosts looking like dogs who are more scary than any of the real dogs.