MASAND: A Leading Actor is a Serial Philanderer - Page 75

The Sushmita affair why Rhea forgave Sanjay Dutt?

Cut to post-TADA times. When everybody but everybody believed that Sanjay's untimely incarceration had put paid to his acting career, Sanjay came back with a bang in Vaastav. Awards and rewards were his for the asking. Once again Sanjay was on a pro-fessional high. He got performance-oriented roles, producers tripped over their heels to sign him on, and organisers clamoured for his presence at live stage shows abroad. Lady Luck seemed to be making up to the beleaguered actor in a big way.

It was time for Sanjay to stumble and fall. He did. This time around his misdemeanour nearly wrecked his marriage with Rhea Pillai-Dutt, the woman who'd stood by him, a pillar of strength, through his traumatic TADA days. The woman who was the balm to his broken heart when a cold-hearted Madhuri Dixit dropped the Deadly Dutt like a brick when he got jailed. The woman who'd loved him unconditionally for what he was rather than what she'd want him to be. Sanjay put this woman through unwarranted hurt and humiliation by throwing caution to the wind and having a 'good time'with actress Sushmita Sen during his world tour of live stage shows last year. He did what was least expected of him - he cheated on his wife!

News of Sanjay's infidelity reached the Indian shores faster than he could take a drag on his favourite Malboro Lights stick. And when it did, everybody but everybody was shocked out of their skin at what the Deadly Dutt had done - betrayed his wife for a casual fling with an actress. But why? Hadn't he finally found true love and happiness with Rhea, the woman he admired and respected like he did his very own mother, the late Nargis Dutt? He claimed so himself in an interview to SHOWTIME where he had emotionally said, 'Rhea means more to me than just a wife. She's like a mother, sister, a friend to me. She means everything to me.'Then how and why in the name of goodness did Sanjay risk his marriage to Rhea and get caught in a brief interlude of lust and passion with Sushmita?

They say Sushmita Sen, filmdom's femme fatale, has that kind of mesmerising effect on the men she sets her sights on. It happened to Vikram Bhatt; even to newly married Sanjay Kapoor; and now to Sanjay Dutt. Besides, it's an open secret that stage shows are hot beds for such fleeting flings. A small group of stars, thrown constantly in each other's close company for weeks together in foreign lands and climes, tend to overstep boundaries resulting in physical intimacy they may not have even intended to or dreamed of in the first place. It's easy to lose discretion largely because abroad nobody really looks at what the other is upto. Certainly not the organisers who prefer to look the other way. As for the eagle-eyed media? The journos are far, far away to get even a glimpse of what's happening behind the scenes. So, what the heck; who's to know of their peccadilloes.

Well, in this instance, a media person did. Again, it was San-jay's in-built hot-headed aggression and his thoughtless, impul-sive behaviour that sent the alarm bells ringing loud and clear and put him in a tight spot not only with the reputed Shyam Bhatia, online editor of India Abroad News Service, whom he physically roughed up, but with wife Rhea as well once she got wind of the entire episode in New York where as an active celeb-rity member of the increasingly popular Art of Living she was attending the World Peace Summit with her guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

Reportedly, it was the wee hours of the morning in the Hyatt Hotel lobby in Birmingham, England, where the unpleasant incident occured. Shyam Bhatia, who waited long hours to wangle an inter-view with Sushmita, thought he was close to getting one when he finally spotted her with Sanjay who looked visibly high on drinks and had the heroine cozily snuggled in his arm with her pretty face deeply embedded in his chest. Sure, Sushmita looked comfort-able. So did Sanjay Dutt! Both looked like they had had a blast and were in the mood for some more fun. Such indiscreet behaviour in the middle of a hotel lobby?! By no stretch of imagination did the two stars look like 'just good friends'to the observers that night.

According to insiders, Sanjay did not even attempt that lame line of defence when wife Rhea confronted him. He couldn't add insult to injury by lying to his wife. She was nobody's fool and would not be easily bullshitted by her star-husband. More important, she knew exactly what Sanjay was capable of - good, bad and other-wise.

But, knowing her husband well did not mean that she was not shattered and hurt when his affair with Sushmita hit her in the face. He had not only embarassed her, he had also compromised their marriage. Naturally, Rhea was livid, to say the least. He had betrayed her trust. And, according to Sanjay's friends, her immediate reaction was to threaten to walk out on him.

Obviously, she couldn't see herself going through the pangs of suspicion and mistrust each time Sanjay went on an outdoor from then on. She wanted a normal, loving life of togetherness with Sanjay which he'd vowed to give her when he married her on an impulse in the middle of the night on Valentine's Day - 14 February - a few years ago. This is not what she would settle for at any cost.

To give Sanjay credit, he did not mince words with Rhea at all. Not once did he even attempt to explain or justify his rash action in straying to forbidden pastures. He came clean with Rhea. He told her exactly what had happened - with Sushmita, with Shyam Bhatia. He broke down, completely, begged her for forgiveness and beseeched her not to leave him, ever.

Apparently, Rhea believed her husband when he confessed to her that he couldn't resist Sushmita's devastating charm. Probably, Sushmita was fated to happen to Sanjay. Years ago, when Sanjay and Rhea were not even a couple, the Deadly Dutt had signed on the Sensational Sen for his home production, Chakra, because he genuinely felt they'd make an attractive pair on screen. The film got shelved even before they could shoot lengthy schedules. So that took care of a probable personal chemistry between the two at that time. In the mean time, Rhea came into Sanjay's life. Being a worldly-wise woman, and having an easy read on Sushmita, Rhea had a clear-cut understanding with her husband - no movies with Sushmita. It's believed that Sanjay had no problem with that and readily complied with her wishes.

But, Rhea figured that no matter what, Sushmita was after all fated to happen to Sanjay. So, there was no point wondering how things could have been different if Sanjay, as was originally planned, had gone with her to New York for the peace summit; or then, if she had been with Sanjay at the shows, the question of her husband looking at another woman would never have arisen.

But then, ifs and buts have a way of complicating things and making matters worse. And Rhea positively does not want that for herself. Because as an active member of The Art of Living, the last thing she wants to do is to wallow in self-doubt, anger, frustration or misery. She believes that the real art of living means learning the art of forgiving, and that she must practise it too and not only preach it in her classes as the budding guru of The Art of Living.

Rhea forgave Sanjay. Not because she is a door-mat and does not have a life other than that of being Mrs Sanjay Dutt. Rhea Pillai-Dutt forgave her husband because she truly believes that the Sushmita affair was an act of indiscretion (and the Bhatia bash-up a juvenile act of aggression).

More important, she forgave him because she really, really loves her husband. Besides, she's well aware that he's putty in her hands. That he's vulnerable to her moods, her actions. That one wrong hasty move on her part - ie, leaving him for his momentary lapse with Sushmita Sen - is too heavy a price for him to pay. That, bottom line, you can't right one wrong with another wrong. Walking out on Sanjay at this juncture in his life would destroy him completely. He would be totally messed up. And Rhea knows it only too well, that this time around, if Sanjay loses his emo-tional bearings, he would be finished for good. Rhea would never want this for her worst enemy. Why would she bring this devasta-tion upon her husband whom she loves and cares for?

So, right now, according to Sanjay's close friends, though it's a trying time for Rhea, she has not walked out on Sanjay. Rather, the couple is working hard to save their marriage. Insiders also reveal that papa Sunil Dutt has also played a pivotal role in helping his daughter-in-law smoothen out her ruffled feathers and helped her even out her thoughts. A contrite Sanjay too is bend-ing over backwards to restore the harmony and peace in their marriage and relationship. He's home more often than not, he's drinking far less, and he's trying to do today what he didn't dream of doing in the recent past - absorb the essence and significance of her life-line, The Art of Living. No, he's not attending the classes, reveal the Dutt's friends. But he's show-ing keen interest in her work, her spiritual affairs.

Professionally too, he has taken steps that positively prove that he's put his money where his mouth is when he expressed to Rhea that he will make amends. He used his good offices with director-and-friend, Mahesh Manjrekar, to drop Sushmita from one of his forthcoming films. Then, he also walked out of a previously committed stage show held in Singapore recently in which Sushmita was one of the participating stars.

So, for all practical purpose, Sanjay seems to have bridged the rift between his wife and himself. And Rhea, on her part, seems to be healing. Friends of the couple reveal that Rhea feels she's done the right thing in forgiving Sanjay Dutt. That's because her belief is rooted in the fact that true love always deserves a second chance. No wonder, Sanjay and Rhea today have started afresh with renewed faith, trust and love. That's how together they've discovered the real art of living