A nice man to know

8220;Through my wife8217;s cancer, I realised the pain millions of cancer patients must go through. Through my son Sanjay8217;s drug addiction, I could feel the pain of drug addicts and their families.8221; As a result of this, he now works for the Nargis Dutt Memorial Foundation NDMF, named after his wife, the Spastics Society of India and drug rehabilitation in Mumbai.

8220;Every year I visit the USA and Canada to attend their fund-raising dinners. The money collected is not sent here but kept by them to purchase equipment. In the past 15 years, the NDMF has donated equipment worth two million dollars to various charitable hospitals in India.

Who espouses the cause of the poor?
Personal problems have always pushed Dutt to work for public causes, and Sanjay8217;s experience with jails is one of them. 8220;When my son was in jail, I came across this case of a watchman who had to execute a bond of Rs 20,000. Now, who would put their money behind a poor man who earns hardly Rs 1,000 a month. He had to stay put in jail for a month before the money was organised. And he had not even been proven guilty.

8220;I am planning to start a trust that would be headed by a retired judge from the Supreme Court and other eminent members from the judiciary. It would then look into the problems of the poor and offer legal assistance. While the rich have a wide choice of lawyers, nobody cares about the poor. The lawyers who take up their case under the government8217;s free legal service are not at all sincere. As a result, many have to do without the benefit of proper legal representation8221;.

Sanjay8217;s problems have been an ordeal for all of us.

He may use a father8217;s suffering as an instrument to reach out to the poor, but it does not change the fact that it was a tribulation for the entire family. 8220;Sanjay8217;s problems have been an ordeal for all of us. My daughter Priya was making documentaries, she had already made one on her mother, and had written the script for another on child prostitutes, but had to put that on hold when Sanjay was jailed.

8220;I was in the process of constructing a building where our bungalow is. At that time the real estate scene in Mumbai was booming. But I had to stop work on it as Sanjay8217;s problems took all my time. Now that things have settled down and I have the time, the real estate market has slumped. So I am back to twiddling my thumbs.

8220;For the past nine years, I have had no income. I have not acted in any film, nor have I directed or produced one. It is only because of my old films that I am surviving. Or else I8217;d be broke8221;.

Talking about Sanjay, what does he think about his actor son8217;s second marriage? 8220;It8217;s a good thing that Sanjay married Rhea. It8217;s better than living together. If children these days are opting for live-in relationships, then that is something we as parents must accept. We must move with the times or the generation gap will widen,8221; he points out.

Cultural changes never occur overnight8230; seemingly small things can transform your traditional modes of thinking.

8220;Our values and culture have undergone a drastic change. I believe there are a few things that slowly change one8217;s cultural orientation. Small things like the music you listen to, the invasion of fast food in your life. A change in clothes 8211; like jeans 8211; seems innocuous but then cultural changes never occur overnight.

8220;Television plays a major role in influencing and shaping opinions of young minds. What do our children watch these days? Serials like Baywatch. If you ask me, only two of the 30-odd channels are worth watching 8211; Discovery and National Geographic.

We must rid ourselves of our divisional tendencies.

8220;If films have become what they are, then it is only because they are a reflection of our society. There was a time when the industry made movies like Sujata and Mother India. We need to do some introspection, look inside and see what we can change. We have lost the pride we had in ourselves, that is probably why we are aping the West8230; And fighting with each other. It8217;s painful to see Indians creating divisions in society on the basis of caste, community, religion. We must get rid of this superiority complex, that I am better than you because I am Hindu or Brahmin or Bengali or Muslim.

8220;In the West, they have proved their prowess in other fields. They have reached the moon. But we are still fighting over senseless things that only succeed in stalling progress. In my opinion, if there is no peace in the country, we can never be successful8221;.