As he walks back after a shot, drenched in fake rain, I ask him: his life has just been one step forward, two steps backwards, hasn’t it?

“I hope this case was the last step back in my life – and God willing, this will be the last,” he says. As he dries himself with a towel, my mind travels to the time when Mukesh Mills – my immediate, quick fix metaphor of Dutt’s life – had not been gutted, when he had barely started the turmoil-full journey of his life.

In their childhood, Sanjay and his sisters Namrata – or Anju – and Priya gleefully struggled with what came with being the children of India’s top movie stars. Sanjay was born on July 29, 1959, two years after the huge success of the iconic Mother India that starred both Sunil Dutt and Nargis.

“My mother dropped her career at the peak – after Mother India – and never looked back. She used to take care of her kids and the family – I was very pampered by her. But we were never brought up as Nargis and Sunil Dutt’s children,” Sanjay says.

He went to Lawrence School in Sanawar as a boarder for almost 11 years. In the holidays, the Dutt family went for vacations to far-off places, from Kashmir to England.

“All of us had a beautiful childhood... with the best parents any one could have,” Sanjay says. “They were strict but gave a lot of love. The only thing they asked of us was that we be good human beings in life. And everything follows after that.” But if the shy Sanjay had gone to Sanawar thinking he would be first among the rest for being the son of superstars, he was soon proved wrong.

“Initially for the first two years, bloody hell, I had to polish 30 pairs of white shoes daily. All because I was Sunil Dutt’s son. I used to make 15-20 beds for the seniors every day,” he says, smiling for the first time in the interview.

“There were girls, you know how it is when we are growing up – crushes and love letters. I wrote many love letters,” he says, and adds quickly – “but I was rejected most of the time. I used to write for others also. We used to sneak out of the school, run down the hills, go and eat bun-samosas and come back, go down the hill to Jhabri and get some country liquor, stuff like that.” He had to manage with pocket money of Rs 10 a week. And when back home, discipline ran strong in the close-knit family.

“We had to be home before sunset, all the kids, and we had to eat food together every day by nine o’clock – Dad, Mom, Anju, Priya and me,” he says, as he sets off again to give a shot, and is given a lethal-looking dagger and a black jacket.
When he returns,his black shirt is gashed with a knife as part of the scene.

Studies would never become his strong point. And if concrete proof were needed, he offered it on a platter on returning to Mumbai, when he joined Elphinstone College to pursue an Arts degree. In an entire academic year, his professors saw him in class for just one day.

“I used to hang out at the Jehangir Art Gallery with my friends, stuff like that – and I realised that that was not my cup of tea,” he says.

The hide and seek continued for the first year, and one day in 1978, Sanjay decided that enough was enough: he would have to have an honest conversation with his father about his future.

“So I went to my father and I said ‘Dad, we are just wasting our money and I can’t study’,” Sanjay says matter-of-factly, taking another puff of his cigarette. “He got damn upset with me. He said ‘you have to get a degree. You have to graduate, I don’t care.’” So he told his father: “I can’t. I want to be an actor.” As Sanjay might have expected, that made the elder Dutt even more upset.

“You think it’s a joke or what, being an actor?” he asked Sanjay.

That, it seems, is exactly what the son thought. So when he insisted, Sunil Dutt decided to respect his wish but only after a test of fire.

“He put me in that grind for two years, for training, diction, acting school, horse riding, fighting, swimming, this, that – and I realised that it was better being in college!” Sanjay says.