EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
One day, they will turn this into a blockbuster,’ began a May 15, 1993, india today story about the bizarre turn of events which saw Bollywood’s then hottest star Sanjay Dutt being arrested for accepting an AK-56 rifle from underworld-linked movie producers. Well, 25 years later, they have. Next Friday’s release, Sanju, is the biopic of a man who has been on the cover of india today twice—neither of them, I must add, for his cinematic oeuvre: May 15, 1993 (Underworld Connections), and August 13, 2007 (Tragic Hero). The charge of possessing an assault rifle eventually saw him serving out a five-year prison sentence in 2016 and is a key twist in the movie star’s chequered life. It coincides with Bollywood’s fascination with biopics. Films on Milkha Singh and Neerja Bhanot have been made and features on astronaut Rakesh Sharma and cricketer Mithali Raj are in the works. Movie stars, especially contemporary ones, rarely get biopics, possibly because their screen personas dwarf their real lives. Sanjay Dutt, whose life offscreen has been far more eventful than his onscreen adventures, is clearly an exception. From drug addiction to underworld linkages and prison stints. As director Rajkumar Hirani, who gave Dutt a mid-career boost with the two Munna Bhai films, says of his muse’s wrong turns in life— “Bad choices make good stories.”
Our cover story this week is not so much the story of Sanjay Dutt or Ranbir Kapoor who pulls off a convincing onscreen impersonation of the star. It is of the auteur who co-wrote and directed the biopic. If Dutt is the quintessential Bollywood Bad Boy, born to two of the most celebrated stars of a generation and into a life of wealth and privilege and coming perilously close to throwing it all away, Hirani’s background is diametrically opposite. A rank outsider, a smalltown boy who relishes his middle class roots, stays away from the filmi parties, shuns entourages and has few industry friends. Rather than any of his glitzier director contemporaries, Hirani’s life harks back to filmmakers like Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee whose middle-of-the-road cinema he grew up watching. Perhaps it is his distance from the industry that has helped him capture the popular zeitgeist, cast memorable characters like the gangster with a heart of gold, a gifted inventor or an alien from a distant planet and helped him deliver four successive hits—Munna Bhai MBBS, Lage Raho Munna Bhai, 3 Idiots and PK—which have collectively grossed over Rs 600 crore (Dutt has acted in three of them) even as he has subliminally woven in themes like the state of our education system, religious dogma and superstitions.
Sanju is clearly going to be a challenge because as the behind-the-story star himself wondered at the India Today Conclave in March 2016, where he spoke less than a month after his release from Pune’s Yerawada Jail, “How much will he (Hirani) be able to put in two hours?” More importantly, will the filmmaker continue his bull run at the box office? Senior Associate Editor Suhani Singh, who wrote this cover story, says: “Hirani loves to play down his impeccable track record and insists there’s no formula to his work.” Perhaps someone somewhere is already scripting a Hirani biopic.