It has been precisely a month since Sanju was released and so the shelf life of penning a film review is long gone. So sitting in my bolthole, rummaging through a pack of crisps, I thought a nice way to flag off this piece was by wishing Sanjay Dutt a happy birthday, today being the day. Fifty-nine candles to blow off on a three-tiered cake, on Sabbath Sunday, with many Instgrammable moments to breezily pop up all day long. By the way, wanting to use bolthole ever since I stumbled on it, and voila, here it is. So bolthole means retreat, self-explanatory, would you not say? One may not know much about Hindi films, but ask anyone about the Sanjay Saga and everyone from 16 to 60 and beyond, have enough dossier to make a yawning movie of their own—be it on his battle with drugs, his setting the trend of bringing a gym-toned body into the industry, his being labelled a terrorist and his long stretches behind bars, his womanising ways, 308 women, the count till he tied the last knot, his floundered marriages. The current and the “final one” to quote him, has apparently provided the much needed stability besides two cherubic twins. Manyata Dutt, wife number three, has made it indisputably clear to both sceptics, and wannabe Mrs Dutt aspirants, that she is, “the last Mrs Dutt, Full-Stop”.
Over two years back Udta Punjab, a movie on how drugs had maimed one of the most prosperous states of India, the Punjab, hurtling youngsters barely in their teens into a snake-pit, was the talk of the town. Kids, doped from head to toe, the Drug Mafia taking over, fertile agricultural land being sold for puny peanuts to get their daily fix. Truth be told, should the movie not have gone under the title, Udta Bharat instead of shining the torch solely on Punjab?! One can get drugs all over Delhi, off the counter. One such den is Subhash Nagar, the name which spawns a sheen over a 14-year-old Dope Head’s face. The same boy who gets lost in his drawing room, will readily reach the mentioned venue in his parents’ car, without a license of course, nor requiring the services of a ubiquitous GPS which is otherwise a life-line, without which the Pothead cannot get around his friendly community market. Subhash Nagar, the police do not turn a blind eye, to surreptitiously come under the cover of dark, to collect their share, as in money. It’s Open House; one procures the desired fix of the day, pays up, while in the same elated breath, rocking with twitching hands, a roll of cocaine, heroin, marijuana, to euphorically snuff, while a cop, with little prohibition, possibly giving the Cracky an exultant Thumbs Up! Then what about the adjoining, once-thriving Haryana?
Let’s peddle down to Palam Vihar, where I live, and if property was not on an ongoing slump would move out at the drop of a hat, to set up home at a stone throw’s away, Delhi (this despite paanwallahs flourishing less on betel leaves and bidi purchases and more on drug dirge). Presently mine, a tree-lined neighbourhood, with lustrously winged peacocks fast-footedly disappearing on account of war-footed construction activity, yet the sky still twinkling of stars and varied resplendent birds continue perching on the running bougainvillea over the boundary walls of houses, but that is where this idyllic story grinds to a 180-degree end; now enter yobbish, upstanding youngsters, shirt buttons of either gender jauntily left undone, skippering the area with most of their bodies covered in imbecilic tattoos, ready to mow down anyone coming in the way of their Audis, Porches or whatever, bought after putting a country-whittled pistol down the gullets of their parents, thus making them sell their ancestral land and Pushtaini jewellery.
These blacked-out cars blading away with woofers in place, booming blood-thirsty, hot-headed, frenzied noise, supposedly music. Partying away the night deluged in drugs and drinks. Come morning, and the Fuzzheads return home to Vampire-esquely sleep away the day till sunset; school drop-outs, of parents who have worked their way to become professors, doctors et al. Himachal, no better, but not as Haryanvi ear-splitting. Himachal’s Kasaul, if one has not heard of this place, Google it! A Panoramic Drug Den—hub of Israeli, Italian, Russian Crackheads besides, our Desi Hopheads. So when Sanju hit the silver screen and our own present day Sanjus enthusiastically rolled up their sleeves heading to theatres with their stupefying ignorance, we with multifold brainlessness thought that Sanju, being a biopic on the actor’s turbulent life, his uphill painful battle with his drug enslavement and finally being able to trounce it, his transparency regarding how one seeks excuses to use drugs and Stoners’ sentencing the whole family through a spin cycle of torture.
Alas…on the contrary, one now finds, little Ranbirs, rather Sanjus, slouched-shoulders, gap-legged, droopy-eyed pottering, drifty walk doing the rounds, talking in tapori vat lagadi lingo, lining at body-building stores to buy king-sized jars of protein powder priced at an elephantine 7,000 rupees, to temporarily acquire the indefatigability, to hit the gym, a la Sanju; he being 30 years clean, immaterial.
However, they still remain steadfast to their narcotic lifestyle. Indian cinema, as a rule, briefly takes us away from our own deafening troubles, also throwing in a few laughs. Sanju, nevertheless, has these youngsters—living on a synthetic high—emulating an anti-hero, a Khalnayak, panther-esquely striding on the backtrack taking from his tome the few chapters that keep their psychedelic shape awake. Time to blow out the candles.
Dr Renée Ranchan writes on socio-psychological issues, quasi-political matters and concerns that touch us all