Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to Devil’s Advocate. With just days to go before the court verdict in his case (in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case), how is accused number 117 preparing himself for a judgement that could change his entire life. That’s the key issue that I should raise today in an exclusive interview with Sanjay Dutt.
Sanjay, as I said there are days to go before the verdict is announced in your case, are you nervous?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, Karan. I am a human being and as every human being would be, I am nervous. I am apprehensive. I wish and pray that everything goes well and I just get my freedom.
Karan Thapar: At this moment in time, when you are simply waiting at this, there is actually nothing you can do. How easy is it to lead a normal life?
Sanjay Dutt: No, it is not easy to lead a normal life at this stage. I have not worked for the last three months. And this is the most important situation of my life as of today. You cannot concentrate in your work and you have to be focused on this. You have to be thinking and have to be prepared for a lot of things in both ways.
Karan Thapar: Tell me how can you be prepared for something like this? How do you get your mind used to the idea as in both ways? How are you approaching this?
Sanjay Dutt: See, I have full faith in the judiciary of our country. I have faith in God and I have faith in the people of my country. My people love me. And I just go with that. I just take one day at a time and that is the only way you can go.
Karan Thapar: But are there days and are there moments, when suddenly you have doubts?
Sanjay Dutt: As I said, I am a human being and everybody goes through these phases of ups and downs in any field of work or anything. Yes, I sometimes do think. But it’s good to be positive.
Karan Thapar: So you have to fight those moments?
Sanjay Dutt: You have to fight those moments. You have to have full faith in God, have faith in yourself, in your family and the people of the country.
Karan Thapar: Has this process made you religious?
Sanjay Dutt: I have always been religious. It is not that this process has made me religious. I have a small, lovely mandir in my house and I pray in the morning. I do believe in Mata a lot and I am also a Shiv bhakt. So it is not because of this, but I have always been religious.
Karan Thapar: You visited a lot of temples recently. You have been photographed at them. Does that give you a sense of peace and a sense of calm?
Sanjay Dutt: Absolutely. There is nothing above God. He is the ultimate power who decides what he wants to do with His children. You get a lot of peace and security when you go and pray.
Karan Thapar: You feel very close to God just now.
Sanjay Dutt: I do. I am always close to God, but yes, I do feel very close.
Karan Thapar: And you need Him?
Sanjay Dutt: Of course, I do need Him.
Karan Thapar: At this moment in time, do your thoughts also go to your parents? (Sunil Dutt and Nargis)
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, I do miss my dad. He was just a power and a pillar of strength for all of us - I mean for all his children, for his party, for the people of his country, and I do really miss him.
Karan Thapar: He believed passionately in your innocence. He always said that Sanjay will be proved innocent.
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, Karan. I know he is right there and he is looking over me. Not only him, but my mother also, who was another pillar of strength for us. She was his backbone. They are right there and watching over me.
Karan Thapar: You feel you have their support?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, absolutely. They are there, I know.
Karan Thapar: During this last one month when the judgments have been delivered day by day, has your mind begun to think of the day when you are going to be in court and happen to hear your own verdict?
Sanjay Dutt: I do think about it, Karan. But you cannot run away from the fact. You have to face it and I have to face it. I can’t be running away saying, ‘it is not going to happen.’ It is going to happen, I have to be there and have to be in front of the honourable court. I have to face whatever comes my way.
Karan Thapar: Are you apprehensive as to how you might behave that day when the judge looks you straight in the face and there is no one there but just you and the judge, and the rest don’t matter, and then he pronounces your verdict?
Sanjay Dutt: Whenever I have been in court, my eyes are always down because of the respect and that is the way I am going to be.
Karan Thapar: Even on that day you won’t look him in the eye?
Sanjay Dutt: I can’t. That is the honourable court, how can you look him in the eye? You have to have respect and that is what my parents have taught me.
Karan Thapar: At that critical moment, when everything has been building up, you think you will be able to control your emotions?
Sanjay Dutt: I have no idea as I have not thought about that. I don’t know what is going to happen. I will just go and as I said I will have faith in God, faith in the people of my country and the judiciary. I will just go and stand. And I don’t know how I will react at that moment.
Karan Thapar: That depends on what happens. That depends upon how you react.
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, I will just go there.
Karan Thapar: One of the problems you face is that you are not an ordinary accused, you are a star. The whole world in a sense is waiting for that moment wanting to know how do you react. ‘What is the emotion on his face?’ ‘What happens to his eyes?’ You are conscious of the fact that you are going to be very closely observed?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, I know I will be. I am not going to be pretending or not going to be preparing. I will just go there and react to whatever happens.
Karan Thapar: You are not going to act your way through that?
Sanjay Dutt: I can’t. It is beyond an exam in a college. And it is something above everything.
Karan Thapar: Does the fact that the whole world is just waiting and wanting to know how you will respond or react, add to the tension that you are going through?
Sanjay Dutt: As I said, I am not concerned about what people will be looking at or what they want to see. At the moment, my own focus is going to be on what is going to happen. My whole focus will be on having faith in God.
Karan Thapar: The rest of the world doesn’t matter at this moment? In a sense, by the way, you have cut yourself off and you have just focused your entire life and your mind around that one day. Everything else has just been cut off.
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, absolutely.
Karan Thapar: You are in a unique position at the moment, Sanjay. You are at the brink between captivity and freedom. What does freedom mean to you today?
Sanjay Dutt: People take freedom for granted. I have said it a lot of times and I advise a lot of people that freedom is something to cherish. You cannot just take it for granted. God has given you freedom, which you have to cherish and not take it for granted, because you never know what is going to happen once it goes away. It is the worst thing that can happen to any human being.
Karan Thapar: It happened to you for 18 months as in 1994 and 1995, when you were in jail. When you look back, how do you look back on those 18 months?
Sanjay Dutt: It was a lesson for me. That is the way I look at it. I am positive about it. That was my destiny and I had to go through it and I learnt about what freedom means, like what you just asked me.
Karan Thapar: Was that what you missed most about the outside world? When you are in captivity for those 18 months was it the ability to do what you want, when you want that you missed most on?
Sanjay Dutt: Even for you or for them or for all these guys, freedom is taking it for granted. My advice to everybody is that you should cherish freedom and never let it go.
Karan Thapar: The problem is that most of us don’t realise what freedom is because we do take it for granted. You lost it and now you have a special meaning for it.
Sanjay Dutt: It does. That is why I advise people.
Karan Thapar: In 1994 and 1995 in Diwali, you were in jail and I remember in one of his interviews to me, your father said, ‘Sanjay says papa light one candle at home, I light one candle at jail. The flickering flames will unite us.’ Do you remember that?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, I do. And I did that on all the Diwalis. I did that this Diwali also. I lit a candle and I knew he was going to do like what I did.
Karan Thapar: Is it easier to have to contemplate the possibility of going back to jail, because you have been there already and you know what it is like? Or does that mean it is much more difficult to accept it?
Sanjay Dutt: I haven’t thought about all that. As I said, I just want to focus on that moment. I just want to bow my head and take whatever comes my way. And I will accept whatever the honourable court says.
Karan Thapar: No matter what the court says, you will accept it?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes.
Karan Thapar: In other words, you have prepared yourself for the worst, if the worst has to come?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, I have.
Karan Thapar: That couldn’t have been easy?
Sanjay Dutt: No, it is not easy but you have to prepare yourself in every field of life. When you go for a shoot, you have to prepare yourself for the worse.
Karan Thapar: Except that, the worst in a shoot is a bad film. The worst here is jail.
Sanjay Dutt: You have to be prepared for it. If it is that way, then you have to accept it.
Karan Thapar: You have nightmares sometimes at night about it? Do you lie awake or do you have dreams about that awful moment and you suddenly realise, ‘God, I have lost it!’
Sanjay Dutt: I have never had dreams or nightmares about it. I pray to God, so I think he protects me.
Karan Thapar: What has the whole experience that has gone on for 13 years done to you? How have you changed?
Sanjay Dutt: It’s not 13 years, it’s 22 years. It started from my mother’s death, to my drug phase, to my wife’s death, everything. It’s been a long journey and as I told you before, the most important person in my life in that journey was my father. And in all our lives, he just stood there like a rock and faced everything. He taught us to face whatever comes our way. And it’s not been easy.
Karan Thapar: So your strength today comes form your memories of your father?
Sanjay Dutt: Absolutely. He told me, “Son look at you and look at the people outside. They have more problems than you have and once you start realising that, you will start feeling better about yourself.”
Karan Thapar: Even today, when in a few days time you could face a judgement and a verdict that could change your life, and God forbid, a judgement that could send you to jail, do you still believe that there are people outside who face worse problems than you do?
Sanjay Dutt: Absolutely. I do a lot of work for cancer and AIDS patients. The other day I went to Tata Memorial Hospital to meet the kids who suffer from cancer and it was such an emotional experience for me to watch those little kids, six-seven years old going through that trauma with a smile on their faces. It was unbelievable and these are the small moments in life when you start thinking that your problems are nothing compared to the problems outside.
Karan Thapar: Those little children of six suffering from cancer actually give you strength to bear your own suffering?
Sanjay Dutt: They do. I look at myself, but I feel happy to give them that happiness for the moment. It was so beautiful to just go there and see them with a smile on their faces. And when I started talking to the doctors, it was traumatic.
Karan Thapar: In 1994-95 when you were in jail, your father said to me, ‘Sanjay is a lot tougher than what people realise.” He said, “People think of Sanjay as a spoilt, rich kid, but he is actually pretty tough inside.”
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, Karan. My parents have bought us up that way. They have never bought us up for smart children. I was sent to a boarding school in Sanawar. They raised us in a wonderful manner, where you start valuing values of life.
Karan Thapar: But at this moment of time when perhaps you face the greatest test you will ever face, do you feel tough or you feel vulnerable?
Sanjay Dutt: It’s both. Sometimes you’re tough, at times vulnerable, and sometimes emotional. It’s a lot of feelings actually.
Karan Thapar: There are a lot of feeling that keep going through you?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes.
Karan Thapar: And they change from minute to minute perhaps.
Sanjay Dutt: Yes. They do, I think. But like I said I have a beautiful family, I have good friends, people of my country. And when I see so much of love and affection, it makes me feel good and secure.
Karan Thapar: At this moment of time when you need to feel secure, when you need to be confident and reassured, what does friendship and companionship mean to you?
Sanjay Dutt: It means a lot. It’s just the support system. It means a lot when your friends and people tell you, “We’re there with you.”
Karan Thapar: You’re leaning on them a lot at the moment?
Sanjay Dutt: No, I’m not leaning on them. I am leaning on my father.
Karan Thapar: More than anything else in the world, he still matters?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes. He matters the most to all of us.
Karan Thapar: Even though he is not with you physically, his spiritual presence is what’s keeping you going?
Sanjay Dutt: Absolutely. I know he is there and I can feel it.
Karan Thapar: And the fact that he believed in your innocence and that everything would go okay, gives you the strength to face up the day, just two-three week’s away?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes.
Karan Thapar: And his is the memory that you keep in your heart and mind all the time?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes. All the time. He’s always there and we do miss him a lot physically, because he just went away very suddenly. I spoke to him the night before and I wanted to go and see him. But he told me “son, you come see me tomorrow. We’ll have tea and then you can go for work.” And the next thing I remember is my sister waking me up to tell me that dad is not getting up. And even then, I questioned him asking him, “Why did you just leave us like that?”
Karan Thapar: And you didn’t get a chance to say good bye?
Sanjay Dutt: I didn’t. He just left.
Karan Thapar: That meeting that you wanted never happened?
Sanjay Dutt: It never happened. And I don’t know if you have seen Lage Raho Munnabhai, there is a moment in the film when Munna tells Jimmy Shergill about his father. “One day I woke up and dad wasn’t there and there were so many things in my heart that I wanted to say which I couldn’t.”
Karan Thapar: That was Sanjay actually speaking the truth?
Sanjay Dutt: It was.
Karan Thapar: Those things that you wanted to say to your father never got said. Now you say them inside and you say he will hear them upstairs?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes. He does.
Karan Thapar: Today when you are at a point, when perhaps you could lose it all, what does stardom, popularity and fame mean to you?
Sanjay Dutt: I am a star because of the people. They watch my movies and that’s why I am what I am. If they didn’t watch my movies, I would have been just another guy. So, it’s just because of the audience who have made me Sanjay Dutt and it gives me so much strength to do better work for them to entertain them.
Karan Thapar: Sanjay, there are just two, two-and-a-half weeks to go for that dreadful day in court when the judge will pronounce his verdict. If he acquits you, how will you react?
Sanjay Dutt: I don’t know.
Karan Thapar: Jump with joy?
Sanjay Dutt: I don’t know. Start crying probably!
Karan Thapar: God forbid, it should go the other way, what will you do?
Sanjay Dutt: I will face it. I have to.
Karan Thapar: Sanjay Dutt, Good luck.
Sanjay Dutt: Thanks a lot.
Sanjay, as I said there are days to go before the verdict is announced in your case, are you nervous?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, Karan. I am a human being and as every human being would be, I am nervous. I am apprehensive. I wish and pray that everything goes well and I just get my freedom.
Karan Thapar: At this moment in time, when you are simply waiting at this, there is actually nothing you can do. How easy is it to lead a normal life?
Sanjay Dutt: No, it is not easy to lead a normal life at this stage. I have not worked for the last three months. And this is the most important situation of my life as of today. You cannot concentrate in your work and you have to be focused on this. You have to be thinking and have to be prepared for a lot of things in both ways.
Karan Thapar: Tell me how can you be prepared for something like this? How do you get your mind used to the idea as in both ways? How are you approaching this?
Sanjay Dutt: See, I have full faith in the judiciary of our country. I have faith in God and I have faith in the people of my country. My people love me. And I just go with that. I just take one day at a time and that is the only way you can go.
Karan Thapar: But are there days and are there moments, when suddenly you have doubts?
Sanjay Dutt: As I said, I am a human being and everybody goes through these phases of ups and downs in any field of work or anything. Yes, I sometimes do think. But it’s good to be positive.
Karan Thapar: So you have to fight those moments?
Sanjay Dutt: You have to fight those moments. You have to have full faith in God, have faith in yourself, in your family and the people of the country.
Karan Thapar: Has this process made you religious?
Sanjay Dutt: I have always been religious. It is not that this process has made me religious. I have a small, lovely mandir in my house and I pray in the morning. I do believe in Mata a lot and I am also a Shiv bhakt. So it is not because of this, but I have always been religious.
Karan Thapar: You visited a lot of temples recently. You have been photographed at them. Does that give you a sense of peace and a sense of calm?
Sanjay Dutt: Absolutely. There is nothing above God. He is the ultimate power who decides what he wants to do with His children. You get a lot of peace and security when you go and pray.
Karan Thapar: You feel very close to God just now.
Sanjay Dutt: I do. I am always close to God, but yes, I do feel very close.
Karan Thapar: And you need Him?
Sanjay Dutt: Of course, I do need Him.
Karan Thapar: At this moment in time, do your thoughts also go to your parents? (Sunil Dutt and Nargis)
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, I do miss my dad. He was just a power and a pillar of strength for all of us - I mean for all his children, for his party, for the people of his country, and I do really miss him.
Karan Thapar: He believed passionately in your innocence. He always said that Sanjay will be proved innocent.
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, Karan. I know he is right there and he is looking over me. Not only him, but my mother also, who was another pillar of strength for us. She was his backbone. They are right there and watching over me.
Karan Thapar: You feel you have their support?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, absolutely. They are there, I know.
Karan Thapar: During this last one month when the judgments have been delivered day by day, has your mind begun to think of the day when you are going to be in court and happen to hear your own verdict?
Sanjay Dutt: I do think about it, Karan. But you cannot run away from the fact. You have to face it and I have to face it. I can’t be running away saying, ‘it is not going to happen.’ It is going to happen, I have to be there and have to be in front of the honourable court. I have to face whatever comes my way.
Karan Thapar: Are you apprehensive as to how you might behave that day when the judge looks you straight in the face and there is no one there but just you and the judge, and the rest don’t matter, and then he pronounces your verdict?
Sanjay Dutt: Whenever I have been in court, my eyes are always down because of the respect and that is the way I am going to be.
Karan Thapar: Even on that day you won’t look him in the eye?
Sanjay Dutt: I can’t. That is the honourable court, how can you look him in the eye? You have to have respect and that is what my parents have taught me.
Karan Thapar: At that critical moment, when everything has been building up, you think you will be able to control your emotions?
Sanjay Dutt: I have no idea as I have not thought about that. I don’t know what is going to happen. I will just go and as I said I will have faith in God, faith in the people of my country and the judiciary. I will just go and stand. And I don’t know how I will react at that moment.
Karan Thapar: That depends on what happens. That depends upon how you react.
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, I will just go there.
Karan Thapar: One of the problems you face is that you are not an ordinary accused, you are a star. The whole world in a sense is waiting for that moment wanting to know how do you react. ‘What is the emotion on his face?’ ‘What happens to his eyes?’ You are conscious of the fact that you are going to be very closely observed?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, I know I will be. I am not going to be pretending or not going to be preparing. I will just go there and react to whatever happens.
Karan Thapar: You are not going to act your way through that?
Sanjay Dutt: I can’t. It is beyond an exam in a college. And it is something above everything.
Karan Thapar: Does the fact that the whole world is just waiting and wanting to know how you will respond or react, add to the tension that you are going through?
Sanjay Dutt: As I said, I am not concerned about what people will be looking at or what they want to see. At the moment, my own focus is going to be on what is going to happen. My whole focus will be on having faith in God.
Karan Thapar: The rest of the world doesn’t matter at this moment? In a sense, by the way, you have cut yourself off and you have just focused your entire life and your mind around that one day. Everything else has just been cut off.
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, absolutely.
Karan Thapar: You are in a unique position at the moment, Sanjay. You are at the brink between captivity and freedom. What does freedom mean to you today?
Sanjay Dutt: People take freedom for granted. I have said it a lot of times and I advise a lot of people that freedom is something to cherish. You cannot just take it for granted. God has given you freedom, which you have to cherish and not take it for granted, because you never know what is going to happen once it goes away. It is the worst thing that can happen to any human being.
Karan Thapar: It happened to you for 18 months as in 1994 and 1995, when you were in jail. When you look back, how do you look back on those 18 months?
Sanjay Dutt: It was a lesson for me. That is the way I look at it. I am positive about it. That was my destiny and I had to go through it and I learnt about what freedom means, like what you just asked me.
Karan Thapar: Was that what you missed most about the outside world? When you are in captivity for those 18 months was it the ability to do what you want, when you want that you missed most on?
Sanjay Dutt: Even for you or for them or for all these guys, freedom is taking it for granted. My advice to everybody is that you should cherish freedom and never let it go.
Karan Thapar: The problem is that most of us don’t realise what freedom is because we do take it for granted. You lost it and now you have a special meaning for it.
Sanjay Dutt: It does. That is why I advise people.
Karan Thapar: In 1994 and 1995 in Diwali, you were in jail and I remember in one of his interviews to me, your father said, ‘Sanjay says papa light one candle at home, I light one candle at jail. The flickering flames will unite us.’ Do you remember that?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, I do. And I did that on all the Diwalis. I did that this Diwali also. I lit a candle and I knew he was going to do like what I did.
Karan Thapar: Is it easier to have to contemplate the possibility of going back to jail, because you have been there already and you know what it is like? Or does that mean it is much more difficult to accept it?
Sanjay Dutt: I haven’t thought about all that. As I said, I just want to focus on that moment. I just want to bow my head and take whatever comes my way. And I will accept whatever the honourable court says.
Karan Thapar: No matter what the court says, you will accept it?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes.
Karan Thapar: In other words, you have prepared yourself for the worst, if the worst has to come?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, I have.
Karan Thapar: That couldn’t have been easy?
Sanjay Dutt: No, it is not easy but you have to prepare yourself in every field of life. When you go for a shoot, you have to prepare yourself for the worse.
Karan Thapar: Except that, the worst in a shoot is a bad film. The worst here is jail.
Sanjay Dutt: You have to be prepared for it. If it is that way, then you have to accept it.
Karan Thapar: You have nightmares sometimes at night about it? Do you lie awake or do you have dreams about that awful moment and you suddenly realise, ‘God, I have lost it!’
Sanjay Dutt: I have never had dreams or nightmares about it. I pray to God, so I think he protects me.
Karan Thapar: What has the whole experience that has gone on for 13 years done to you? How have you changed?
Sanjay Dutt: It’s not 13 years, it’s 22 years. It started from my mother’s death, to my drug phase, to my wife’s death, everything. It’s been a long journey and as I told you before, the most important person in my life in that journey was my father. And in all our lives, he just stood there like a rock and faced everything. He taught us to face whatever comes our way. And it’s not been easy.
Karan Thapar: So your strength today comes form your memories of your father?
Sanjay Dutt: Absolutely. He told me, “Son look at you and look at the people outside. They have more problems than you have and once you start realising that, you will start feeling better about yourself.”
Karan Thapar: Even today, when in a few days time you could face a judgement and a verdict that could change your life, and God forbid, a judgement that could send you to jail, do you still believe that there are people outside who face worse problems than you do?
Sanjay Dutt: Absolutely. I do a lot of work for cancer and AIDS patients. The other day I went to Tata Memorial Hospital to meet the kids who suffer from cancer and it was such an emotional experience for me to watch those little kids, six-seven years old going through that trauma with a smile on their faces. It was unbelievable and these are the small moments in life when you start thinking that your problems are nothing compared to the problems outside.
Karan Thapar: Those little children of six suffering from cancer actually give you strength to bear your own suffering?
Sanjay Dutt: They do. I look at myself, but I feel happy to give them that happiness for the moment. It was so beautiful to just go there and see them with a smile on their faces. And when I started talking to the doctors, it was traumatic.
Karan Thapar: In 1994-95 when you were in jail, your father said to me, ‘Sanjay is a lot tougher than what people realise.” He said, “People think of Sanjay as a spoilt, rich kid, but he is actually pretty tough inside.”
Sanjay Dutt: Yes, Karan. My parents have bought us up that way. They have never bought us up for smart children. I was sent to a boarding school in Sanawar. They raised us in a wonderful manner, where you start valuing values of life.
Karan Thapar: But at this moment of time when perhaps you face the greatest test you will ever face, do you feel tough or you feel vulnerable?
Sanjay Dutt: It’s both. Sometimes you’re tough, at times vulnerable, and sometimes emotional. It’s a lot of feelings actually.
Karan Thapar: There are a lot of feeling that keep going through you?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes.
Karan Thapar: And they change from minute to minute perhaps.
Sanjay Dutt: Yes. They do, I think. But like I said I have a beautiful family, I have good friends, people of my country. And when I see so much of love and affection, it makes me feel good and secure.
Karan Thapar: At this moment of time when you need to feel secure, when you need to be confident and reassured, what does friendship and companionship mean to you?
Sanjay Dutt: It means a lot. It’s just the support system. It means a lot when your friends and people tell you, “We’re there with you.”
Karan Thapar: You’re leaning on them a lot at the moment?
Sanjay Dutt: No, I’m not leaning on them. I am leaning on my father.
Karan Thapar: More than anything else in the world, he still matters?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes. He matters the most to all of us.
Karan Thapar: Even though he is not with you physically, his spiritual presence is what’s keeping you going?
Sanjay Dutt: Absolutely. I know he is there and I can feel it.
Karan Thapar: And the fact that he believed in your innocence and that everything would go okay, gives you the strength to face up the day, just two-three week’s away?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes.
Karan Thapar: And his is the memory that you keep in your heart and mind all the time?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes. All the time. He’s always there and we do miss him a lot physically, because he just went away very suddenly. I spoke to him the night before and I wanted to go and see him. But he told me “son, you come see me tomorrow. We’ll have tea and then you can go for work.” And the next thing I remember is my sister waking me up to tell me that dad is not getting up. And even then, I questioned him asking him, “Why did you just leave us like that?”
Karan Thapar: And you didn’t get a chance to say good bye?
Sanjay Dutt: I didn’t. He just left.
Karan Thapar: That meeting that you wanted never happened?
Sanjay Dutt: It never happened. And I don’t know if you have seen Lage Raho Munnabhai, there is a moment in the film when Munna tells Jimmy Shergill about his father. “One day I woke up and dad wasn’t there and there were so many things in my heart that I wanted to say which I couldn’t.”
Karan Thapar: That was Sanjay actually speaking the truth?
Sanjay Dutt: It was.
Karan Thapar: Those things that you wanted to say to your father never got said. Now you say them inside and you say he will hear them upstairs?
Sanjay Dutt: Yes. He does.
Karan Thapar: Today when you are at a point, when perhaps you could lose it all, what does stardom, popularity and fame mean to you?
Sanjay Dutt: I am a star because of the people. They watch my movies and that’s why I am what I am. If they didn’t watch my movies, I would have been just another guy. So, it’s just because of the audience who have made me Sanjay Dutt and it gives me so much strength to do better work for them to entertain them.
Karan Thapar: Sanjay, there are just two, two-and-a-half weeks to go for that dreadful day in court when the judge will pronounce his verdict. If he acquits you, how will you react?
Sanjay Dutt: I don’t know.
Karan Thapar: Jump with joy?
Sanjay Dutt: I don’t know. Start crying probably!
Karan Thapar: God forbid, it should go the other way, what will you do?
Sanjay Dutt: I will face it. I have to.
Karan Thapar: Sanjay Dutt, Good luck.
Sanjay Dutt: Thanks a lot.
