Date:10/09/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/09/10/stories/2007091053851300.htm

National

Nargis wanted Namrata to take care of Sanjay Dutt

“You know you are our only son and we have great hopes on you”

— Photo: PTI

IN MOTHER’S ARMS: Nargis with Sanjay Dutt.

New Delhi: Nargis, mother of actor Sanjay Dutt, had foreseen the trouble that he would get into and wanted her daughter Namrata to make sure that he stayed away from some of his friends whom she felt were having a bad influence on him.

“Please look after Sanju, see that he does not get mixed up with those silly boys again. He is too stupid in his head, he does not realise what he is doing and know it is going to hurt him,” wrote Nargis to Anju, as Namrata is fondly called by the family, while going to the U.S. for treatment for cancer. She died in New York in May 1981.

Talking about the fear and pain of the realisation that she might have to leave her family behind forever, Nargis wrote: “I am in such a mental condition, I have gone far away from all of you, and I don’t know what is going to happen. But I have faith in God. He is not going to be so cruel as to not send me back to all of you. I know how much all of you love me. Keep praying for me that all will be well with me.”

The letters are part of a coming book written by Priya, Ms. Namrata along with some contributions by Mr. Dutt titled Mr. and Mrs. Dutt, Memories of our Parents. It is scheduled to be released later this month. In a letter to Mr. Du tt after he was sent to a boarding school, Nargis asked him to concentrate on his studies.

“Now you have promised to do even better and I promise I will come and see you every month. You know you are our only son and we have great hopes on you. You must study hard and become a big man so that you can look after us in the old age,” she wrote.

Ms. Namrata wrote after Nargis death:

“Dad was devastated. He couldn’t sleep in their bedroom any more. We volunteered to sleep in the same room as he did, but he’d wake up in the middle of the night and leave. In a panic, we’d get up and look for him, only to discover he was lying on the sofa in the living room, having fallen asleep again. Sometimes he would go to Mom’s grave at 4 a.m.

“Finally we realised we had to act maturely and be strong for him. He must have felt completely alone. He must have wondered, ‘What am I going to do with these three children? There’s no one to share my life. No one I can talk to.’ He shared everything with Mom. His work, his life, everything, and now she had gone.” — PTI