Sunil Dutt would spend entire nights next to Nargis’ grave, was a ‘broken man’ after her death: ‘He started drinking, we were scared’

Former politician Priya Dutt, the daughter of Sunil Dutt and Nargis, spoke about the difficulties they experienced when she was diagnosed with cancer. Nargis died at the age of 51 in 1981, mere days before Sanjay Dutt’s acting debut. Her death left Sunil Dutt a ‘broken man’, she said in an interview, recalling how he spiralled into grief, and the incident that brought him out of it. She said that Sunil stopped looking after himself, and took to alcohol to cope with the loss. But one day, he realised that his children needed him to be present, and he made the decision to get his life back on track.

This was also when Sanjay was seeking solace in drugs; his addition would lead to several more years of turbulence for the family. In an interview with Vickey Lalwani, Priya said that Nargis went through hell during her treatment in the United States, but insisted upon returning to India when she felt that the end was nigh. “Our lives changed hugely. A little more than a year later, my father was a completely broken man. We were scared for him. What is he going to do? He used to wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning, and go to the kabristan, and just sit there alone. He couldn’t sleep at night, he couldn’t work, he couldn’t do anything,” she said.

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Priya said that one night, she looked at the sky and spotted a star. She told her father that Nargis was looking over them, and protecting them from harm. This triggered something inside Sunil, and he changed overnight into a completely different man. “He was pulled back into reality, and he did a 360 degree turn. He threw out all his cigarettes, every alcohol bottle in the house was thrown out. He’d started drinking. But he cleared up everything overnight. And then, he went on a mission to focus on his kids,” she said.

In the same interview, Priya said that her father honoured her mother’s wishes to be buried, even though others were telling him to have her cremated. Sanjay also took a few years to re-emerge from his addiction, and what triggered him to change was voice recordings of Nargis; messages that she had left behind for him while undergoing treatment for cancer.