Sunil Dutt

Its rare for a politician to be known for his integrity and honesty. But that's what everybody said of Sunil Dutt.

I cannot think of a better way to be remembered than as a honest, caring, sincere person who made peace a lifelong mission.

To me, Sunil Dutt will forever be the sensitive Adheer Babu of Sujata, who fell in love with the low-caste Sujata, stuck to his conviction that love knows no caste and what's more married her in the end.

In a way perhaps he did just that in real life. Nargis was the daughter of JaddanBai, a famous tawaif (courtesan) of Benaras who acted in movies also. I do not think, it was ever established who Nargis's father was. And that, I am sure never mattered to Sunil Dutt.

I wonder why we do not highlight the goodness of people whilst they are alive. It would make such a welcome change from what the newspapers are usually full of -people getting killed, scandals, hypocrisy.. It's all so depressing.

It would be so inspiring to read of people whose lives were destroyed more than once yet picked themselves up and went on to scale higher heights.

The trauma of partition, the struggle for recognition, loss of a dearly beloved wife to cancer, a son's drug addiction, worse the same son's alleged involvement in the Bombay bomb blasts and subsequent imprisonment, the isolation that followed could have broken the man yet Sunil Dutt bounced back each time.

Rest in peace Sunil Dutt. You have earned it. On a lighter vein, today's Economic Times has an obituary which wishes the deceased 'Bon Voyage & Eternal Peace'. Amen to that!