When Dhurandhar 2 Star Sanjay Dutt Had A Phone Call With The Real Bade Sahab's Lieutenant

Dhurandhar 2 is a juggernaut, with Sanjay Dutt lighting up the screen as SP Chaudhary Aslam, a character inspired by a notorious Pakistani 'encounter specialist'. His character repeatedly refers to 'Bade Sahab', India's most wanted fugitive, Dawood Ibrahim, as the unseen force pulling the strings.

What makes it striking is the uncanny echo of Sanjay Dutt's real life. Because long before the fiction, long before he played a SP Aslam admiring 'Bade Sahab' on screen, Dutt had firsthand experience of the real 'Bade Sahab's' world.

'Bade Sahab': The Shadow That Once Haunted Sanjay Dutt

Back when the underworld's grip on Bollywood was real, he maintained a quiet familiarity with that scene, frequently in direct conversation with the foot soldiers and fixers of the real D-Company.

Sanjay Dutt was arrested in April 1993 for illegal possession of weapons linked to the 1993 Mumbai blasts case and spent various periods in jail on remand and bail over the next two decades. It was this legal battle that brought many of these chapters to light.

Reports later surfaced that in December 1991, during the Dubai shoot of the film Yalgaar, director Feroz Khan allegedly introduced Sanjay to the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. The film crew reportedly attended a dinner party at 'Bade Sahab's own residence. This was the time when Bollywood films were funded in a big way by the underworld 'bhais' or their cronies as a means to launder money, much of it orchestrated from overseas.

The grueling criminal trial pushed Sanjay and the Dutt family to the breaking point. His career suffered a severe blow and his personal life was in tatters as his wife, Richa, fought a losing battle with cancer.

Vaastav: The First Big Comeback After The Case

1999 marked Dutt's comeback. Four of Sanjay Dutt's films - Daag: The Fire, Khoobsurat, Haseena Maan Jaayegi, and Mahesh Manjrekar's award-winning crime drama Vaastav - were hits.

Vaastav remains one of the high points of Sanjay's career. His portrayal of a drug-addled gangster forced into crime felt uncannily close to his real-life struggles.

It is a cliched gangster story: Raghu (Sanjay) is a lower-middle-class man living in a Mumbai chawl with his family. He unwittingly gets involved in a crime and becomes part of the underworld. Raghu soon rises to the top and begins to believe he is invincible. And then it all comes tumbling down.

This was a crime drama that followed a standard formula but director Mahesh Manjrekar gave it emotional depth and coaxed a moving performance out of Sanjay. The film had some powerful moments but the real clincher was the climactic sequence. Inspired by Sanjay Dutt's mother Nargis's classic Mother India, in Vaastav too a mother (Reema Lagoo) shoots her gangster son. The scene is traumatising and disturbing, and both actors perform brilliantly.

Finally, the spotlight was on his acting, not his trials. He excitedly talked about his performance in Vaastav. 'If we did the climactic sequence in several takes - deliver one shot, relax, deliver the next - then it would be hard to retain that high level of emotional intensity. Finally I told Mahesh Manjrekar that I had to do it in one go. So Mahesh placed seven cameras around and the portion inside the house was done in one go and the portion outside the house was done in one go.' This climax became the most talked about scene of Sanjay's career.

Sanjay, who had long battled drugs and legal troubles, drew on his real-life experiences to play the drug-addict, misguided gangster in Vaastav. After a nearly two-decade-long career, Vaastav had finally won Sanjay his first and only Filmfare best actor award.

With a career revival after seven years of legal hell, many expected him to be a changed man. But Sanjay recklessly flirted with danger yet again, deepening his legal troubles.

The Phone Call With Bade Sahab's Lieutenant

Despite serving time in jail and the serious case hanging above his head for seven years, Sanjay was still in touch with underworld dons.

On the night of November 11, 2000, from the Hotel Taj Residency in Nashik, Sanjay Dutt, Vaastav director Mahesh Manjrekar, director Sanjay Gupta, and producer Harish Sugandh spoke on the telephone for forty-five minutes to the notorious underworld don Chhota Shakeel, Dawood Ibrahim's lieutenant, in Karachi. The same Shakeel who is charged with having played a key role in the Mumbai blasts and committing dozens of other murders.

The conversation between the gangster and the superstar and his friends was tapped by the CBI. It was produced as evidence and played in an open court for the first time on July 26, 2002. The contents of the tapes were broadcast on national television and the front page of every newspaper.

In the recording, Sanjay is heard having a freewheeling conversation with Shakeel. Among other things they talk about a T-shirt that Sanjay had bought for Shakeel because, as Shakeel put it, 'Main zyadatar T-shirt pehenta hoon [I mostly wear T-shirts]'; about how actor Govinda, whom neither seems to like, always shows up late for shoots.

And that's not all. At one point when Shakeel asks Sanjay what he wants from Dubai, Sanjay says, 'Bhai aapne jo Afzal ko bheja hai na, waise ek bhejo na mereko yaar. [Send me what you sent for Afzal.]' Presumably an article of clothing or a fashion accessory, Shakeel tries to understand what Sanjay is referring to: Was it plain brown? Was it brown with checks? Was it in crocodile leather? Did it have tinges of rust?

Underworld don Chhota Shakeel also advises Sanjay's friends: he gives director Sanjay Gupta tips on editing his films and talks to Mahesh Manjrekar about his plans to make a 'realistic' film on Shakeel's life.

The transcript not just hinted at the closeness of Sanjay's association with Shakeel but also how entrenched the underworld was in Bollywood. It was nothing short of crazy, suicidal even, that Sanjay still had associations with the underworld.

For his part, Sanjay told the police that film stars had to speak to underworld dons because they were scared. Perhaps Sanjay's proximity to Mumbai's dons was a survival strategy? It was, Sanjay argued, foolish to hang up on them.

Police officer Suresh Walishetty who had arrested Sanjay Dutt in 1993 from the airport had given Sanjay some benefit of the doubt when he had told me, 'Sanjay is stupid. He is so childish. Usey andaza hi nahin hai ki woh kar kya raha hai. [He has no idea what he's doing.]'

According to another Mumbai Police officer, 'He was deeply fascinated with the underworld and their power. It is as simple as that. For a limited phase this proximity had even made Sanjay very powerful in the film industry.' Sanjay's connections meant he was able to help his friends out of sticky situations. In the book Maximum City, Suketu Mehta narrates how gangster Abu Salem, once an associate of the D-Company, threatened filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra and asked him for money. Sanjay stepped in and managed to get his friend off the extortion hook with a single phone call.

'He is... naive and foolish. Duniyadaari se, kaayede-qanoon se, kisi cheez se koi matlab nahin,' says the officer who was close to his father, actor-politician Sunil Dutt. The Dutt family knew the officer's family for years. The officer narrated a funny incident that reflects Sanjay's naivety. The officer was present during one of Sanjay's appearances at the TADA court in Arthur Road Jail.

In the evening, some Mumbai Police officers called Sanjay to one of the rooms at the prison to ask him about the case. Sanjay came into the room and as soon as he saw the police officer, he reached out to hug him. The officer gave him a cold stare, signalling his aloofness and discouraging Sanjay from the hug.

He obviously didn't want the others to assume any professional misconduct. 'Sanjay immediately understood and stopped. All the officers asked questions. Maine bhi do sawaal poochhe. [I also asked a couple of questions.] He answered them seriously. He was acting brilliantly, calling me 'sir'. Then the officers asked him to go. I was relieved that he was leaving... But as soon as he reached the door, he turned around, looked at me and said, 'Bhai, give my love to Bhabhs [an affectionate way of saying 'Bhabhi', or sister- in-law] and kids.' All the officers were looking at me. It was so embarrassing.'

The officer narrated another amusing incident that reflects Sanjay's naivety. According to the officer, when Sanjay later sent a petition for leniency to the President of India - 'a serious letter explaining his suffering and that he is not a terrorist and why he deserves freedom' - he signed off with 'Cheers!'

Also Read | Did You Know Dhurandhar Was Shot At This Sanawar School Where Sanjay Dutt Studied?