Winning Role

Dutt was playing himself, not acting. For those who saw him though, it was a paradigm shift in VIP-watching.

Coming back to the Games Village from a training session one day, the Indian hockey team was surprised to see Dutt waiting patiently. He had dropped in to meet them and take a few photographs8230; photographs he would take and they would pose for, not photographs where the players would be sidekicks flanking mantriji.

Talking to shooter Mansher Singh, Dutt was proactive. He wondered why, instead of omnibus sports centres, India couldn8217;t have academies that bunched together, for instance, archery and shooting, similar sports that could benefit from a common sports science and psychology resource. It8217;s only an idea, but at least the minister8217;s thinking.

When Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi played their first round match, Dutt turned up late. There were no seats free at the small side court. So the minister stood and watched, without making a fuss, clicking pictures occasionally and walking up to shake hands with the victors afterwards.

After their quarter-final victory, Paes and Bhupathi got a congratulatory call from Dutt at close to midnight. The previous day, Rajyavardhan Rathore had got a handwritten note.

One Indian Olympian summed it up, 8216;8216;I8217;ve never met a minister like him. Other sports ministers waited for us to introduce ourselves, this one was introducing himself to us.8217;8217;

Those who8217;ve known Sunil Dutt a long time would not be surprised. Ever the gentleman, his 20 years in public life 8212; beginning with a victory over Ram Jethmalani in the Lok Sabha election from Mumbai North-West in 1984 8212; have been a study in understatement. His critics say he is silent simply because he doesn8217;t have much to say, no opinions to offer. This would be unfair.

Before the Games, Dutt personally inspected training facilities and stadia in Delhi, looked into conditions in which athletes were staying, addressed issues of allowances. Those were actions that spoke. It would have been so easy to him to get dazzled by the glamour of being minister for cricket, sharing the bright lights with the Tendulkars and the Pathans. That would have been so like a politician, no unlike Sunil Dutt.

Named Balraj Dutt by his parents 8212; the name was changed to Sunil because there was already a Balraj, the venerable Balraj Sahni, in the film world 8212; Dutt began life as a radio announcer. In 1955, he made his debut in Railway Platform. The big break came two years later, with Mother India. As Birju, the rebel, Dutt played a dark hero; while making the film he played a real hero, rescuing co-actor Nargis from a fire.

The two were to marry, beginning one of Hindi cinema8217;s most successful partnerships, the Paul Newman and Joan Woodward of India if you like. Ajanta Arts, their production house, was a cusp between commercial and art house cinema. Reshma aur Shera 1971 gave Amitabh Bachchan his first role; Yaadein 1964, a one-man film, was different for, well, being different.

Hmm8230; at Athens, that8217;s precisely what they8217;re saying about Sunil Dutt.