Sanjay Dutt Was A Media Sensation Even When He Was Born. Find Out How!

Like the rest of the nation, you must have watched Sanju by. Apart from the brilliant performance by Ranbir Kapoor , another thing that instantly jumps out from the film is Sanjay Dutt’s strange dynamic with media. Throughout the film it has been constantly re-iterated that media played a major role in both Sanjay’s rise, downfall and even resurrection. But Sanjay Dutt’s relationship with media does not start with his Bollywood career, this relationship goes back a long way. Media, quite literally, is responsible for giving Sanjay Dutt his identity.

When Sunil Dutt married Nargis in 1958 they had to keep it a secret. Back in 1958, a Hindu man marrying a Muslim woman elder to him in age sparked all kinds of controversies and it did not help that Nargis was playing the role of Sunil Dutt’s mother in the upcoming film Mother India.

However, despite all oppositions the two got married and soon Nargis was pregnant with her first child. Their son was born on 29^th July, 1959 at 2.45 p.m. but a suitable name for the baby boy was yet to be decided.

A darling of media and fans, Sunil and Nargis Dutt decided to make fans a part of their joyful journey.In November issue of a popular Urdu film and culture magazine Shama, Nargis and Sunil Dutt urged their fans to suggest names for their new born son.

Many fans send in their entries but the one that struck with the star couple was Sunjay Kumar. Both the parents loved the name which was the name of Dhritarashtra’s charioteer in Mahabharata. They finally zeroed in on the name and that is how our Sanju Baba was named, via crowdsourcing. Later when was to make his debut with Rocky, he changed the spelling of his name to ‘Sanjay’ but you can still find his name written as ‘Sunjay’ in many old magazines and newspapers.