'I love My Life; Someone Up There Is Kind': Remembering Director Sanjay Gupta

Sanjay Gupta had a birthday (October 23) exactly a week before he passed. And, as always, he was on top of the world. A few days before his birthday, he invited me for the Mata Ki Chowki (October 19), an annual puja in his bungalow. “We all need Mata Rani’s blessings,” he said. And, on puja day, he immersed himself in the rituals and bhajans. Of course, minutes later, he would also insist on accompanying me to the buffet counters saying, “You must try the dal, the jalebis and the halwa.” Wickedly, he would wink and add, “Please today, leave your diet aside. You have to eat a bit of everything. I have selected most of the dishes personally.”

While accompanying you to your vehicle, Gupta made sure you collected the prasad and a gift (usually handcrafted by his entrepreneur wife, Anu, who wears her grey streaks with aplomb.

Anu and he married twice

I got acquainted with the Pune-based Anuradha Gupta when she married ‘Gupts’, as we fondly called him, in 1997. They were living near Lokhandwala, 4th Cross Lane back then. Years later, they divorced. And, even while Gupta walked around with a lovelorn-Romeo look on, news came of how he and Anu were getting hitched again. In 2009, they remarried at a simple temple ceremony on June 3. And the private joke between Gupta and me was that Anu and he had the same wedding date as Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan, who married on June 3, 1973. “This one date, I will not forget,” he said many times over.

Gupta had hoodwinked death in 2002

In December 2002, Gupts met with a fatal accident when returning from Lonavla. The front tyre of his Pajero reportedly burst. A sudden brake by the driver caused the car to hit a pole. Gupta suffered serious injuries to his left hand and rib cage. He was hospitalised in Mumbai’s Lilavati Hospital. And, he often spoke of this being his second birth. “I love my life, someone up there is kind,” he said.

His love story with the movies continued

Sanjay Gupta was obsessed with films. He loved talking about the craft over lunch, mostly Punjabi food at his ‘den’. His walls are crammed with books/Blu-Ray DVDs/pen-drives and what have you on international cinema. He devoured a film/book or two every night. In that sense, cinema was his only religion.

However, the Hindi cinema that he made with the top brass in Bollywood including Amitabh Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Anil Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Irrfan Khan, Manisha Koirala and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan did not have a soul.

His Bollywood oeuvre was a mixed bag of films (many of which were ‘lifted’ from Hollywood/Korean cinema). And the bunch was often described as being high on style, low on substance. Here are some random examples. Khauff (2000) was an unofficial remake of Hollywood’s The Juror (1996). Zinda (2006) was inspired by the Korean film, Old Boy(2003). Kaante (2002) was copied from Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992). Aishwarya Rai and Irrfan Khan’s Jazbaa (2015) was an adaptation of the Korean film 7 Days (2007).

That having been said, Sanjay had a good run in Hindi cinema because of one single quality. Gupta was blessed with the gift of the gab. He was well-read (devouring Hollywood biographies), articulate and he was a media darling. He also worked hard and fitted little else into his life other than family and cinema.

Currently on his table are two Hollywood legends biographies—One Helluva Ride, Michael Douglas and the second is The Steps, Sylvester Stallone. Both of these may remain partially unread because on October 30, Gupta had a terrible accident in his own home. And, if unverified reports are to be believed, his teenage children were the ones to spot their father lying dead. A source said that his son, Shivansh and daughter Dalia, found their father hurt and bleeding on the kitchen floor in the morning. Other reports say he fell in the bathroom. The sad part is—57 is no age to go.

He started his career on the same sofa as SRK

It was at G P Sippy’s office that Shah Rukh Khan had signed Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman (1992) and Gupta had signed Aatish: Feel the Fire (1994).

“SRK and I are both products of the same stable,” Sanjay would say in later years but the two of them never collaborated. However, when Hrithik Roshan’s Kaabil (2017), directed by Gupta clashed with Shah Rukh Khan’s Raees (2017) directed by Rahul Dholakia, the Roshans and Gupta were miffed with SRK. “I have never known SRK to play dirty with anyone in his entire career,” said Gupta pre-release. “I’m in disbelief that he is clashing with us.” As luck would have it, Raees fared better at the box office than Kaabil did. And, the Kaabil camp sulked with SRK for a long time.

“Hrithik is 10 years younger than SRK,” said Gupta. “Salman and Aamir are his contemporaries. Why would he jeopardise a Hrithik film? It’s most out of character with what SRK has been standing for in all these years,” he had rued.

Jazbaa’s failure put Gupta in a blue funk

When Jazbaa with Aishwarya and Irrfan failed, Gupta was staring at a blank space in his career. But as luck would have it, a chance meeting with Hrithik brought him the Kaabil offer. “Someone up there was looking out for me,” he smiled. However, Hrithik had told him that he would start shooting for the film only in 2016. And Gupta wondered how he would run his kitchen.

“That would mean that I was left sitting at home for eight to nine months. That is something I couldn’t afford. In an ideal world, I would be happy to concentrate only on preparing for Kaabil. However, I was almost being compelled to start another film in the interim to keep my kitchen running. This made me unhappy. After all, that is not the reason why any film should be made. Let me be blunt. Filmmaking is a business of passion. And the reasons for making a film must be right. Of course I admit that you have to combine the passion with economics because if your film doesn’t make money, then people hesitate to give you another chance,” he had shared.

May he rest in peace.