The NY Times reported this morning that Dutt was already out, but it looks like the bail formalities will stretch out just a little longer.
For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with the news of Sanju Baba, he’s served 19 months for buying guns from mafiosos who were themselves involved in the devastating 1993 Mumbai bombings.
I saw Dutt just recently in Om Shanti Om,
a Shah Rukh Khan vehicle that came to the local multiplex. It was a brief cameo, in this scene where virtually all the surviving Bollywood superstars (with the noticeable exception of the Bachchans) dance happily with Shah Rukh Khan and sing. Here we see Sanjay Dutt dancing on the bar on the far left:
Considering that Om Shanti Om is this year’s big Bollywood hit, the scene must have been shot just before Sanju Baba was duck-walked to prison.
Just to the right of Sanjay, is Saif Ali Khan, called Saifu to his friends. I’ve seen him in Parneeta, where he plays the leading man in a beautifully shot 50s period piece romance.
Next is Salmon Khan:
who also has the reputation of being the bad boy of Bollywood (there’s so many of them, it’s hard to keep track). He might edge out the others because he’s got two significant arrests under his belt: first he was shooting endangered black antelope with controlled firearms, and second, he was out drunk driving and he ran over some homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk. But that sort of thing happens all the time in India, so it’s not as bad as it sounds. Right?
At the far right is Shah Rukh Khan, the only man in Bollywood who can make me buy his biscuits . Also called the SRK and King Khan. He’s the star of Om Shanti Om, and he has the political and box-office clout to call every one else in Bollywood onto his set and dance for him:
In case people have stopped making comparisons between Bollywood and Hollywood, King Khan plays a man in Om Shanti Om who is twelve years younger than Khan’s actual age. But the movie rocked, and in good Bollywood style, just when you think it’s over, the main character gets reincarnated and you realize that you’re not even halfway. Reincarnation is like a narrative re-set button.