Vaastav has caught up with Munnabhai. That could be one reaction to the six-year sentence slapped on Sanjay Dutt on Tuesday for illegal possession of an AK-56 rifle two months before the 1993 Mumbai blasts.
Vaastav is the Hindi word for reality and also the name of the 1999 movie for which Sanjay Dutt won the Filmfare best actor award while playing the role of a naive youth whom the system turns into a cocaine-sniffing gangster who kills for a living at the instance of his political masters.
Munnabhai was the iconic role Sanjay played more recently of a small-time gangster who goes on to reform himself and the system out of his belief that the act of reaching out to those in need can change lives to an extent where a person who has been in a coma for years can come back to the living.
That the Vaastav protagonist went on to play the Munnabhai role reminds one of a 1959 book review of R K Narayan’s The Guide where Time magazine wrote that it was only in India that a sinner could become a saint as naturally as a change of weather. Even the official British medical journal took note of the success of Munnabhai MBBS.
That the actor who could bridge the seemingly irreconcilable universe of the underworld with that of miraculous cures of not just individuals but the system may have to spend the next 48 months in jail only underlines the tragedy of Sanjay Dutt.
It is a tragedy not just for Dutt, his family and friends but also for millions of fans who identified with the Munnabhai character he played. Producers might lose up to Rs 100 crore on under-production films starring Dutt but they have only themselves to blame since judgement day in Judge Kode’s court had been long awaited.
That not just the fans but even the I&B minister — better known for suspending TV channels — should hope for relief for Sanjay Dutt only underlines how real life can be touched by reel life, courtesy the alchemy of a Munnabhai role.
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