Sanjay Dutt has finally walked out of prison having paid for the crimes he committed more than two decades ago, when he bought arms from the same cache that was used to set off a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai.
The blasts were organised by a section of the underworld in retaliation against riots that had happened in the city.
Dutt, who apprehended a threat to himself and his family at the time, decided to stock himself with machine guns and grenades instead of seeking protection from the police, which they would definitely have granted given that his father, Sunil Dutt, was a much respected politician.
Because the arms were from the stockpile that had been smuggled in for the Mumbai blasts and because some of those gangsters themselves had given it to Dutt, he too faced legal charges that are targeted at terrorist acts.
The case crawled with one court after another convicting him; the Supreme Court finally reaffirmed it, but they did one thing that gave Dutt enormous relief. The court, while sentencing him to five years in prison said that he was not a terrorist and only charges under illegal possession of arms would apply on him.
Dutt, presumably because of the acumen of his legal team and the goodwill he holds among the powers that be, managed to get out eight months before his scheduled release. His release is controversial but for the moment Dutt is celebrating the feeling of freedom.
Talking to the media after reaching home, he said that his freedom was only sinking in gradually and that he missed his father, whom he could have finally told that his son was free. He also reiterated that he was not a terrorist and he requested the media to not portray him as such when they wrote about him.
There was also an interesting nugget of information that he gave out. In jail, prisoners get paid to do their work and Dutt had earned Rs440 (About US$ 6.5) in his time and he was going to give it to his wife Manyata. He also picked up a new skill while inside, of making paper bags. But the probability of him developing it is very thin, because Dutt says that he is looking to get back to work in movies as soon as possible.


A little doublespeak

Sonam has a penchant to shoot her mouth off and getting into needless controversies. For instance, when the municipal corporation of Mumbai put a temporary ban on beef because of a religious festival, a Tweet of her seemed to suggest the ban was connected to misogyny or the hatred of women and their suppression.
No one could get the connection and she came in for much flak on social media. Now, fresh with the success of her movie Neerja, she seems to be at it again. With both Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone getting a foothold in Hollywood, Sonam was asked in an interview whether she would also consider it. Sonam’s reply was that while she would want to test those waters, she would only do so with projects that would showcase her seriously — it didn’t interest her to play the part of the exotic Indian in the west.
This was a needless dig at those Indian actresses who are already finding work there. Also there is some hypocrisy to it because Sonam was recently in a music video of Coldplay where her presence was negligible and the video itself was criticised for exoticising all the clichés about India. So, when she talks about not wanting to be put in a label, she should perhaps do some retrospection.


Open secret

Salman Khan seems to getting to that point in a relationship where he does not think it is necessary to keep it under the wraps any longer.
There has long been speculation that he and Iulia Vantur, a Romanian model, were together but he had refused to confirm it. When rumours cropped up, he would mock them.
But recently Iulia was seen at the party he threw to celebrate his 50th birthday. And later, Salman also Tweeted about Iulia’s reality television show, The Farm, comparing it to Bigg Boss, the one that he hosts.
You could still put that down to a favour he would do a friend but then another piece of evidence cropped up. Salman was seen in Dubai with Iulia after he took a break from the shooting of his movie Sultan. And not just seen, someone apparently photographed them kissing and the image went viral on social networking. On the other hand Salman’s face can’t really be seen very clearly in the photo so the jury should really be out whether it is genuine. But too many things about them together seem to be making news for there to be smoke without fire.

No idea

Nana Patekar has been doing some great work providing relief to drought-affected areas in the state of Maharashtra. And unlike others who talk about their social work, Nana was doing it without any fanfare until the media stumbled on to it.
Aamir is another Bollywood personality who has a social avatar and his television show Satyamev Jayate has highlighted some very important issues. Recently, Aamir’s interests overlapped with Nana’s when he collaborated with the government to launch a project that would encourage drought-affected regions to save water.
In the press conference to announce it, Aamir said that he would be speaking to Nana the same day and it was thought the latter would also be coopted in some manner. But then the script seemed to deviate somewhat.
A week later, a reporter asked Nana at an event whether Aamir had been in touch with him and he replied in the negative, adding that he knew nothing about Aamir’s initiative. He was magnanimous enough to say that it was not necessary if they were both doing work with a common purpose. But it still makes one wonder why Aamir would not stick to his word.

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