Raj Kapoor was there in Nargis’ life, but the man she clearly loved was Sunil Dutt : Desai, New Delhi, Dec 30: “Darlingji: The True Love Story of Nargis and Sunil Dutt” was originally planned to be a biography of only Nargis by Lord Meghnad Desai and Kishwar Desai. But that was when Kishwar’s surname was still Ahluwalia and had just fallen in love with the Professor Emeritus of London School of Economics while editing his book on Dilip Kumar. Somewhere along the way, as they got married in 2004, it was decided that she alone will handle this project, and that Nargis’ story could not be told without telling the story of Sunil Dutt, so passionately they were in love with each other without ever making any public display of it.

Kishwar Desai, a former TV anchor & producer now busy in writing a biography of Saadat Hasan Manto and the screenplay of Shyam Benegal’s forthcoming film “The Spy Princess” spoke with Deccan Herald on her journey into the lives of the Dutts:

Q: What did you have in mind when you chose the subject?

A: Many biographies just talk about the films of an actor and you don’t even get to know in what time and what context a film had been made, even though it is very important to know under what circumstances a film is made.  Nargis-Sunil Dutt’s is a very powerful Hindu-Muslim story that starts with the Partition and then becomes a very secular story, because the family lived very well together, with their Hindu relatives, their Muslim relatives, adapting to every social ritual. It is very important to look at these things. My husband also liked the concept, and since he is a professor, you have to work very hard to meet his standards.

Q: The book by Namrata and Priya Dutt on their parents also came out almost simultaneously…

A:  We had planned both the books at the same time in Mumbai. Initially, I had plans to write about Nargis only, but after meeting Sunil Dutt, I felt that her story could not be told without him, because people have not appreciated the important role he played in her life. They always talked about Raj Kapoor and all that. This is a man who had been seriously underrated. He had a personality which was very interesting. I was very lucky that I could meet him, though the unfortunate thing was that he suddenly died and I could not meet him afterwards. But the children were very helpful. They called us and said they had a lot of photographs and papers. Sunil Dutt was very meticulous and kept everything neatly. He must have felt like doing that because during Partition he had lost everything. He was not a bitter man and had a very positive mind. When we saw so much material was available, we discussed with Namrata and Priya that this is too much material for one book. So we planned it like that – they separated out the material into what would go in the pictorial book of theirs and what would go in the book Meghnad and I were working on at that point of time. It is great that both the books have come out together, because this is the 50th year of release of “Mother India”, during the shooting of which they had fallen in love after the famous fire incident. In a sense, the two books complement each other.

Q: Did you find any aspect unknown till then about them while researching?

A: What was very unusual is that nobody knew that they had such deep love for each other, as they had to keep it a secret because “Mother India” was about to be released and they were playing mother and son. For one year, they had to maintain a very secret relationship, just writing letters to each other. The other reason was that he was a struggling actor and she was an established star. He came from a very traditional background, she from a cosmopolitan background. They fall in love suddenly and find that they have to reconcile with all these differences. So, it becomes a very difficult relationship. That they had this very turbulent, one-year period, is not known to anybody. Raj Kapoor was there in her life, but the man she clearly and very dearly loved, which comes through very clearly in her diaries, was Sunil Dutt.

Q: Did you find any aspect unknown till then about them while researching?

A: What was fantastic was I got in her own handwriting Nargis’ description of what actually happened during the fire. We only know from other accounts about the incident. What was very unusual is that nobody knew that they had such deep love for each other, because they had to keep it a secret because “Mother India” was about to be released and director Mehboob Khan did not want the information to go out to anybody because they were playing mother and son. For one year, from March 1957 to March 1958, they had to maintain a very secret relationship, just writing letters to each other. The other reason was that he was a struggling actor and she was an established star. He comes from a very traditional background, she from a cosmopolitan background. He has an image a woman he wants to marry – a very traditional housewife, and Nargis is not like that, but you cannot stop love. They fall in love suddenly and find that they have to reconcile with all these differences. So, it becomes a very difficult relationship. They had a lot of fights, and they used to always make up because they cannot live without each other. That they had this very turbulent, one-year period, is not known to anybody. Even the term Darling-ji, which they used to call each other privately, nobody knew – as in public they always used to call each other Dutt Sahab and Mrs Dutt. Raj Kapoor was there in her life, but the man she clearly and very dearly loved, which comes through very clearly in her diaries, was Sunil Dutt.

Q: How did he cope with her cancer and her death?

A: He almost broke down. He coped very well when she was ill, that one-year period was such a bad phase for him but he was such a loving husband that he never left her room once. After her death, he did have a sort of breakdown, a big depression. Somehow, they always thought she would recover.

Q: Did he try to balance it out by becoming more and more involved with politics and social work?

A: His engagement with politics and disengagement with cinema actually started a little while before, actually quite a bit before Nargis’ death. Just after “Reshma Aur Shera”, he was already beginning to disengage and look for a different meaning to his life. Nargis was always oriented towards social work, and you always tend to get affected by your partner. He was also a very patriotic and idealistic man. They both wanted to do something for their country. He was looking for a means of expression, I think, but what happens is that most of us have to continue working. After “Reshma Aur Shera” flopped, he started thinking about it more seriously.