• Sanjay, since we are in the past still, way back in the past, tell us a little bit about your marriage. How you met your wife. That (her death) was the second tragedy?

I met her here in Mumbai, and we decided to get married. And my father went and spoke to her parents, and we got married, and then she was pregnant with my baby. And I was shooting in Haryana or somewhere and she was there, and I had to come back. She’s got family in Delhi so she was to come back a day or two later. I was at the airport and there was an announcement, “Mr Sanjay Dutt, if you are there, please come to the phone.” I went to the phone. Previously, she used to complain about headaches. I went to the phone and there was this doctor talking to me, asking if I could cancel my flight and come to such and such hospital. I said, ‘For what?’ He said, ‘For something to do with Richa.’ So I went there, running to the hospital. She was in the scan machine, and he showed me . . . that she’s got brain cancer.

• I’ve seen those scans my mother had . . .

Really?

• At a very young age, 36, and it doesn’t give you much chance after that.

It doesn’t. We flew her to Mumbai, and we flew her out to New York, where her parents were. And she was in the Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital, and one thing I can tell you: she was tough. I hope, and God bless her, I hope she is happy where she is. I’ve never seen a tougher person than her. Never.

... contd.