Being the 'final Mrs. Dutt'

Produced by Shah Rukh Khan’s TV production company Red Chillies Idiot Box, “The First Ladies with Abu Sandeep” is an in-depth chat show hosted by designers Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla. It is on air every Saturday on NDTV Good Times at 10pm.

Over 12 weeks it is featuring a select group of distinguished women personalities such as Nita Ambani, Gauri Khan, Usha Mittal, Jaya Bachchan, Neerja Birla and Adhuna Akhtar among others.

Guests like Maharani Padmini Devi and Tanya Deol appear for the first time ever in a full-fledged TV interview on this show.

This Saturday (January 24, 2009), “The First Ladies with Abu Sandeep” will feature Sanjay Dutt’s wife Manyata.

Below are excerpts from the show:

Manyata's introduction by host Sandeep Khosla

"Behind every generous and successful man there is a woman. And nowhere is this true than with our guest today. Her husband is no stranger to controversy. He was the bad boy of Bollywood. He did a stint in rehab. His friends took advantage of him and he even went to jail. She was the one who quietly entered the scene and inspired him to clean up his act. She is the one who has given him a new direction in life. Please welcome the lady who stole Sanjay Dutt's heart, Manyata Dutt."

Manyata on Sanjay

Revealing that she planned a book on Sanjay that she would title “The Roar of the Lion” she shed light on the two contradictory images of Sanjay, "From the outside Sanjay is the typical macho man, to me he looks like a Greek god at times and I have no words to describe him. But if you look at him as a person, his heart, his emotions, his mind, his thoughts, he is a person who is just like a child, very docile, vulnerable and gullible. He is a person who will give everything for love."

On whether peoples' attitude had changed now that she is Mrs. Dutt

Manyata retorted that her being Mrs Dutt only mattered to impressionable people. But her friends who always had faith in her, and knew that she would be the "final Mrs. Dutt", have not changed their behaviour towards her.

On how she relates to Sanjay Dutt as an actor

"The day I start relating to Sanjay Dutt as an actor, I don't think so my marriage will work. I relate to him as a person. Ki subah uthke mujhe autograph nahin lena hai, nashta banana hai." (I don’t have to get up in the morning and take his sutograph, I have to make breakfast.)

On when she watched Sanjay Dutt films as a teenager

"I was never a Sanjay Dutt fan."

On her childhood

"I was born in Bandra, Pali Hill. My parents split when I was a kid, so I have been living in bits and pieces with both my parents. But I have learnt a lot from being in a broken family . If you are from a broken family , because I am an optimistic person, I took it positively and decided that when I get married I am going to make it work.”

When she met Sanjay…

"We met nine years ago. For six years we were friends and we were seeing each other only for the past three years but nine years is a long enough time to know someone enough to know that you want to be with them forever."

On the huge 19-year age gap between them

“I have always been mature for my age and Sanju has always been a little childish for his age, so it makes no difference now."

On going all the way to Goa to get married

"We didn't go to Goa to get married; we were already in Goa shooting for the movie ‘Kidnap’, which was planned four months ago. And Sanju was always an impulsive person, especially when you look at his second marriage. So on the 14th of Feb he just woke up and said lets gets married, and we got married in a temple at 4 in the morning. At that time, we had wanted to get married for quite some time but there were quite a few legal settlements pending with respect to his second wife. So those were settled on the 6th of Feb, the lawyers faxed us the papers and Sanju was just celebrating, and he turned around and said let's get married tomorrow. And there was ignorance of law. He is from the film industry so for him it's like boy and girl elope, get married in Bangalore and so on. We didn't know that Goa has Portuguese law which is very different from Indian Law so you can't just get married. And Sanju is a big name, anything he does gets reported."

On Sanju's family and her family not attending the wedding

"Sanjay's sisters were informed but they chose to keep out. Even my family was informed but they stayed away as they weren't happy with the situation but then I told them that if loving Sanjay is not right then I would rather be wrong all my life."

On her supposed ex-husband casting all sorts of allegations

"I would like to clear this and ask the media and all the people watching this show. How can they believe a con man who has 365 cases pending on him, almost one case a day?"

Who would she kill?

In the confession segment, she indignantly confessed that she would like to kill 'All the press reporters and people who write b@#$# about me without knowing anything about me.”

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