Sanjay Dutt’s biopic has all of us raving about the bad boy of Bollywood’s life struggles and ‘adventures’, that, while spicing up the film adaptation, is nevertheless a telling account of a real life persona’s tryst with life as ‘not a bed of roses’.
‘Sanju’ is an absorbing retelling of the man’s life experience and with a stellar cast supporting an able script that has just the right dose of drama and Dutt’s trademark wit and charisma, the film is doing wonders at the box office.
Trade pundits and critics alike have hit the right chord with Sanju, and movie revelers are going all gaga over the hype that have surpassed all expectations.
And the film have enormously lived up to every anticipation, be it in content, or enactment or the execution of the level of expertise the film incorporates.
The protagonist in particular, Ranbir Kapoor, lights up the screen with his presence and every time he appears on screen, Kapoor manages to evoke a variety of emotions in our cinematic faculties, overshadowing even the doyens of Indian cinema. Paresh Rawal as Dutt’s father Sunil Dutt also puts in a superlative performance, and succeeds particularly in bringing the father- son equation to light.
Among the other notable characters in the film is the energetic Kamlesh aka Kamli played by another talent, Vicky Kaushal. And while he obviously manages to do justice to his part with the characteristic warmth and flair that he puts in to the role, it is essentially the real life Kamlesh who has generated greater interest in the media and social circles.
Kamlesh, interestingly, is not one single individual that have impacted Sanjay Dutt’s life; rather, he is an “amalgamation of three or four other friends of Sanju sir”, as put in by Kaushal himself.
The character of Kamlesh is,however, closest to one Paresh Ghelani, whom Dutt affectionately calls ‘Pariya’. Ghelani is currently settled in the US, and was spotted recently at the Mumbai airport along with Dutt.
Even then, “Paresh can’t be Kamlesh in the film for the simple reason that Paresh came into Baba’s life after the Mumbai bomb blasts when Baba’s real problems with the law started. In the film Kamlesh is shown to be Baba’s friend from long before the blasts supporting and pulling him out of his crisis when Baba’s mother died and he was hooked to drugs. Paresh was nowhere on the scene during that troubled phase of Baba’s life.”, one of Sanjay Dutt’s close friends confirm.
The most troubled phase of his life saw Dutt discovering his ‘pillars of strength’ in brothers-in-law Kumar Gaurav and Owen Ronson, when he was faced with terror charges.
Even then Kamli’s character holds significance, for the simple reason that it underlies the extent to which Dutt’s friends had influence on- and modified- his life, for the most part. As one soul stirring real life drama that captures the audience’s attention and captivates the realm of human emotions, Sanju presents one major interpretation of Baba’s life and heroics, his rise and fall, his exploits and fails in an epic representation that has touched every heart to the core.
