I am what I am. I wish I could quote this Reebok tag line and then sit back. But is it true? Am I really what I am, what I profess to be or is there is a different self behind the masquerade? Am I the competent professional or a bumbling, careless fool? Am I the liberal moderate or a shy conservationist? Am I religiously agnostic or just a plain religious hypocrite? Am I the eternal optimist or a hidden cynic? Am I the one with the solutions or simply a part of the problem? Am I the outspoken radical or a cowering and silent coward? Am I the sensitive family guardian or an ignorant relative?
Rolling along and finding new question marks…do I know what I am? ...

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It is a little difficult for me to assess where I stand in this whole Sanjay Dutt affair. Ever since he has been consigned to six years of imprisonment by the unrelenting and strict P.D.Kode, opinions have been flying thick and fast as to the merits and demerits of the judgment. Most of us probably do not question the fact whether Dutt illegally possessed a firearm or not, but we do dispute and debate whether six years of incarceration is too harsh for keeping an AK-56 rifle on behalf of an underworld gangster.

Opinions have been broadly divided in four categories – the first who think that he deserves his years, simply because everyone linked with the gruesome blasts of March’93 need to be punished. The second type is the one which believes that being a celebrity he needs to be made an example of and hence punished harshly than others around him. Then there is a third and a contrary opinion which believes that he is being made an example of precisely because he is a celebrity and is an easy prey. And finally there is the fourth lot, his many ardent admirers who genuinely believe that he isn’t guilty.

You can easily discount the ‘punish him to set an example’ argument quite easily because it lacks the maturity that jurisprudence and legal interpretation demand. It was an argument used quite often in the case of that frequent law breaker Salman Khan, but it is one that is not strong enough to hold its ground. A person should be punished according to the measure and severity of his crime and not according to this social status, for status and wealth are precisely the attributes that courts are supposed to ignore. The same could also be used to counteract the opinion which paints Dutt as the scapegoat. There are others in this case who have probably been dealt with more harshly than him – Yakub and Rubina Memon being the prime examples. They were first of the Memon family to have surrendered and returned home believing they would be tried freely. And now, the former faces the gallows for being a conspirator and the latter goes to prison for life.

Which then leaves us with the two arguments debating the correctness of quantum of sentence and it is here that I have some element of sympathy for Dutt. Not because he is a celebrity or because he is the endearing Munna Bhai but simple because as this trial has worn on he has displayed that he truly is his father’s son. His moral compass finally came around to admitting that he did commit a wrong and that he stored a firearm in his house while not having a permit to do so. You could of course argue that there are thousands of people around the countryside and even in our cities who possess firearms without a license and go unpunished. But that is missing the point – an illegality is an illegality and non-punishment of one is no excuse for letting off another. But Dutt’s case is slightly different than many of the other high profile celebrity criminal cases in recent times. Despite all the media attention and hype around him, he has displayed a certain poise and maturity while appearing before the courts. Even till the end, as he tearfully admitted before Judge Kode, he acknowledges that he made a mistake but that he had no inkling of the larger bomb blasts conspiracy. His stand is so refreshingly honest when compared to the likes of Salman Khans and the Sanjeev Nandas, who somehow vanished from the wheels of their cars or through an inspiration from Houdini turned their cars into trucks. For that matter, Dutt has also come out in a much more straightforward fashion when compared to the open hypocrisy of the celebrity eyewitnesses of the Jessica Lal case or the verbally fluctuating Sunil Kulkarni of the BMW case. At a time when accused show scant respect or regard for the law, it is heartening to hear some one take a stand and acknowledge his guilt, albeit only partially against the charges pressed against him. And in this admission of his, is reflected the moral standing of his father, the last of the Gandhians in active politics. It’s almost like your little kid admitting that he lied or stole – you might still spank him or scold him, but you would know that he has learnt the larger lessons, those of abstaining from such misdeeds and of being honest to himself and those around him. And no matter how long a time he may spend behind bars, Sanjay Dutt came claim that at the end of this all, he has still managed in a way, to protect the honor and dignity of himself as well as that of his deceased father.

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Jury is still out on who actually threw the jelly beans at Zaheer Khan at Trent Bridge but Michael Vaughn and Peter Moores would be well advised to keep the toffees back in the dressing room the next time they take the field. This incident reminds me of a famous anecdote once narrated by Ian Healy on television. Now the Aussies are universally acknowledged as the motor mouths on the cricket field but it doesn’t always pay. This was in the mid – 90s and Australia were playing Sri Lanka in Colombo. The Lankans were three down for not much and Asanka Gurusinha (no less a pugnacious character himself) was finding himself all at sea against Warne and Mcgrath. After another across the line play and miss, Healy chirped to Mark Taylor standing at first slip, ‘No harm in playing straight’. It was an inoffensive and innocuous remark which Gurusinha took so seriously that he went on score a big hundred by the end of the day. While walking off the field at the end of the day’s play with the Lankans firmly in commanded, Taylor chided Healy, ‘No harm in you keeping your mouth shut.’

No harm in keeping those jelly beans where they belong – in a big jar on the top shelf, way out of the reach of naughty kids.

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