Of a superstar called Sanjay

chandigarh: this week, there is absolutely nothing else one can write about except superstar sanjay dutt. with regular advertisements about his visit, the hype had been built and the city almost went berserk on seeing the star... and mind you, we are not talking about roadside chalta hai crowd but those who spent rs 500 a pass to see him. since he missed his flight and an evening appointment, everybody was waiting for him with bated breath, including the press, and the minute he entered the venue in friend rajiv 'thunderbolt' bali's blue mercedes, all hell broke loose. all photographers at the gate burst in with the tide, which swelled up as dutt kept getting closer to the dinner arrangement, and soon there were over 100 people following his every step. while the rest of us had to contend with seeing dutt on a big screen put up at the venue, there were a lucky few who managed to stay right by the star's side throughout. one of them was a beaming parag jain, ssp, who, supposedly protecting the star, managed to stay by his side the entire evening. looking dapper in a suit, jain probably smiled enough to last the whole year! the other person, who dutt was protecting from the crowd, was pfa's payal sodhi. a lot of people envied her that night as she accompanied him around the venue. but even luckier was another girl who asked dutt if she could hug him and screeched her lungs out when he obliged! not to forget a male fan who was being pushed around by the cops because he wanted to get close to the star. not that you can blame the cops -they were only doing their job - but when dutt happened to see this, he himself told the cops to move aside and asked this fan to come up to him and had photographs clicked with him. the only embarrassing moment was when the star-crazed crowd (who had been cheering and shouting 'sunju' all along) fell completely silent when an autographed clock by sanjay was auctioned by pfa; not one bid was heard and the auction was deferred for later until a magnanimous bali offered to buy it. while the rest of bali's friends, pratap hoon of charisma motors, kapil khanna and rest of the gang, had a good laugh (the last person who needed sanjay's autograph was bali), when bali came up i asked him how much he had paid and said, "i paid rs 10,000 but i would have paid even a lakh for it; he's like a brother to me." no wonder dutt loves this city! and the city sure loves him. geetika_bhandari@indiatimes.com