Sanjay Dutt made us drink with him, recalls senior paparazzo: ‘We had no choice…even non-drinkers had to sip’

Sanjay Dutt was friendly towards paparazzi. (Source: Express archive photo by Prakash Yeram)

Sanjay Dutt has made headlines throughout his life — sometimes for his struggles with addiction, and at other times for his alleged links to the underworld and terrorists. The recovery of an AK-56 from his residence proved to be one of the darkest chapters of his life, landing him in jail for five years. He was accused of illegally possessing firearms connected to the 1993 Mumbai bombings and was convicted under the Arms Act for possessing an AK-56 rifle and a pistol. Although he was cleared of conspiracy charges, Dutt served his full five-year sentence, which he completed in 2016.

A biopic on his life, starring Ranbir Kapoor, was later made, portraying him as a largely misunderstood and kind-hearted man—an image that, it appears, many paparazzi associate with him even today.

Senior paparazzo Varinder Chawla recently recalled Sanjay Dutt’s behaviour with photographers in a conversation with Siddharth Kannan. Sharing an anecdote, he said, “Many times, Baba would call us over during his shoots and ask, ‘Oye, idhar aa… do you drink?’ If we said no because we were working, he would insist, saying, ‘I feel like you drink.’ Others would back him up, and he would then force us to drink with him. We had no choice. He’s such a big celebrity that even non-drinkers would end up sitting and drinking with him.”

He laughed as he said, “We would sit outside his house and drink with him.”

Chawla went on to describe Dutt as a kind man and even referred to him as a “messiah” in his life. Recalling another incident, he said, “At one point in my career, I bought a second-hand Maruti Zen. Once, while Sanjay Dutt was shooting at Filmistan, I clicked his pictures and was about to leave when I accidentally hit his vanity van while reversing. His people immediately surrounded me and demanded money. The cost of my car wasn’t even close to the damage they claimed. I was sure I was going to get beaten up when Sanjay Dutt came down and asked, ‘What happened?’ I told him I had hit his van. He turned to his people and said, ‘Let him go.’ At that moment, he felt like my messiah. He has always been a very chill guy.”