The Different Sides Of Sanjay Dutt

In the last 15 years, Rajkumar Hirani has directed a mere five films – each bigger than the last, and each featuring oddball characters who take on the system with an arsenal of child-like humour and optimism. Which is why his latest, a biopic on the explosive life of Sanjay Dutt, might be his most challenging project yet.

- Nidhi Gupta

Let me show you something.” Rajkumar Hirani drags a pair of chairs to his edit machine. On the left screen is a blur of colours, like confetti blowing in the wind; on the right, a freeze of someone who looks like a familiar Nineties actor lurking behind a giant flower pot.  

Hirani scrolls back and forth till he finds what he’s looking for: Ranbir Kapoor in a Fanta coloured shirt, blond highlights in his hair, standing in a college classroom. Hirani hits the space bar, and we travel back in time to 2003, to a scene from Hirani’s first film, where his long-standing collaboration with actor Sanjay Dutt began.

It’s a few weeks before Sanju’s release, and I’m with Hirani at his villa, where he’s doing what he loves best: putting some final cuts, wipes and polish to the biopic. Buddy, his affable cocker spaniel, lazes on a leather couch; Dev Anand and Rajesh Khanna stare out of giant vintage posters; and between sips of lemonade, I’ve just asked him who plays Hirani in the film. Considering that he is, for a change, as much part of the story as he is the storyteller. And why we’re watching this recreated scene from Munna Bhai MBBS. “It was the last time father and son worked together, you know,” Hirani tells me. “But no, I’m not in it.

“What kind of narcissism would that be?”

At what point did you decide that you wanted to make this biopic?