We all are familiar that Sunil Dutt and Nargis Dutt’s love story began during the filming of the 1957 film Mother India when Dutt saved Nargis during a fire incident on the set.
However, during an episode of the popular chat show Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai hosted by Farooq Sheikh on Zee TV in the 2000s, Dutt confirmed that that is not how he wooed his lady love.
“I have saved many girls that way, but they did not become my wife”, he said. Revealing how he actually proposed to Nargis, Dutt shared, “One day I offered to drop her off at Marine Drive and as we took a turn from the signal, I told her that I wanted to say something to her and confessed that ‘I want to marry you”. After that, there was complete silence in the car. I had decided that in case she refuses my proposal, I will go back to my village and plough the fields. One night, when I returned home, my sister congratulated me, saying that Nargis had said yes to me.”
After Dutt took his mother’s permission to marry Narigs, the couple tied the knot on March 11, 1958, in an intimate wedding ceremony, followed by a wedding reception with their close friends from the industry in attendance. The couple is blessed with three kids – Sanjay Dutt, Namrata Dutt, and Priya Dutt. Dutt died of a heart attack in his sleep in 2005 at his residence in Bandra, West Mumbai, at 75. Nargis died in 1981 of pancreatic cancer when she was 51.
In 1993, Sanjay Dutt was arrested under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Prevention Act (TADA) for possessing illegal weapons supplied by those involved in the Mumbai bomb blasts. Later, he was not convicted for terrorism, but was found guilty under the Arms Act. Dutt spent a total of around 5 years in jail combining both his terms – first from 1994 to 1995 and then from 2013 to 2015.