Filmmaker Rajiv Rai said that he was best friends with actor Sanjay Dutt, but their relation soured when he cast the actor out from his movie Yudh, presumably because of his drug habit at the time. In an interview, the filmmaker said that he should probably get the credit for ‘changing his life’, because it was only after Sanjay was fired that he got the ‘shock’ he needed to get his life back on track. He was sent to the United States for rehab, but his father, the legendary Sunil Dutt, never stopped worrying about him. He even requested Rajiv Rai and his father, Gulshan Rai, to reconsider removing Sanjay from the film, but they wouldn’t budge because they knew that they couldn’t afford to delay their film.
Rajiv said that it is a sin to criticise actors for being unprofessional, because they always work with the producer’s best interests in mind. He also claimed that Sanjay was never a no-show in the time that he worked on Yudh. “I shot 14 reels with Sanjay Dutt. In my heart of hearts, he’s still my best friend. I can never forget those days, because they were the best days of my life. My father was best friends with Dutt saab; we were very close to the family. There were issues…”
He continued, “Sanju was not well. He needed rehab in Florida. I spoke to his father and told him to get him out of this… Whatever this is… I was very concerned. I’m not sure how he took it, but I think I changed his life. If I had not taken this drastic step then, he wouldn’t have made the changes in his life. I had to forgo my friendship with him.” Rajiv said that ‘fire’ is a very ‘ugly word’, but he admitted that he had a conversation that led to him being removed from the movie.
He added, “I spoke to him every day, and I told him that he should take care of his health. I asked for his kind permission to carry on with the film and find somebody else. I had nobody.” He said that their families ‘go back a long way’, and that Sunil Dutt’s first cheque was cut by Gulshan Rai, and that both he and his father were in New York for a significant period of time when Sanjay’s mother, Nargis, was undergoing treatment for cancer.
He said, “Things didn’t work out professionally between me and Sanju, and it was for his own good. He may love me for it or hate me for it, but I don’t know, because we’ve never spoken about it… I have nothing bad to say about it. I’ve been tortured by this. I could sense that both he and his father were very upset with me, but I don’t know for sure. If I was in their place, I would definitely be upset. I would sit with Dutt saab, and he didn’t want Sanju to be removed. He’d keep requesting me to give him another chance. He was very upset about the situation as well. But I told him that he needs the electric shock.”
Sanjay Dutt returned from rehab and resumed his career, but his troubles didn’t end. Some years later, he was convicted in connection with the Mumbai blasts, and years after that, he was diagnosed with cancer. A film based on his life was released in 2018, with Ranbir Kapoor in the role of Sanjay.
