How the media really covered Sanjay Dutt's jail release

Sanjay Dutt walked out as a free man on February 25. The 53-year-old actor had been serving a five-year term for his conviction in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case, but his sentence was lessened to 42 months for good behaviour (read: good lawyers).

A day before Dutt had an early release, we had his detailed itinerary. Dutt's PR agency had informed the media about his every move post release. Anticipating the media attention and knowing Dutt would be followed everywhere, they had planned and scheduled his movements. If fact is stranger than fiction, people who are responsible for churning out fiction are even stranger in fact. Sanjay Dutt's itinerary was as follows, with PR personnel posted at all the points.

1. Exit from Yerwada.

2. Pune airport.

3. Mumbai airport.

4. Siddhivinayak temple.

5. Bada Kabristan.

6. Bandra residence.

Rajkumar Hirani, a filmmaker who is not just commercially successful, but is also known for the critically superior films he makes, is rolling out the comeback carpet for "Murali Prasad Sharma" with not just one, but two films. A Dutt biopic starring Ranbir Kapoor, and the third instalment of the 'Munnabhai' series which had given Dutt that much-needed image makeover and a new lease of life. Hirani was filming Dutt's first steps out of jail, along with the rest of the media.

Also read: Sanjay Dutt released after 42 months in jail. Twitter verdict

As a reporter on field, you are the last one to see what you're talking about, so it was only after I got home that I saw Dutt's dramatic exit from the Yerawada jail. He walked out with a bag slung over his shoulder, touched the ground and turned around to salute the flag in a move that conjured BGM in the best of our heads.

I question everything, and if that makes me a cynic then rest assured I question my cynicism as well. If a chartered flight was arranged to "escape the media glare" as was conveyed to us, then why was the media invited to Siddhivinayak and Bada Kabristan?

Also read: Prison may not have changed Sanjay Dutt, but who cares?

The blockbuster release for Dutt on Thursday was much bigger than any he had seen on a Friday. I start my reportage with these lines, and I can't help but wonder if a) I am plagued by cliches b) if it's too dramatic, or c) if I am erring on the side of sycophancy.

If the viewers want to watch every step of Dutt and if both Dutt and the viewers are happy with the coverage, can it be alright if we mute our journalistic conscience? Every person with a microphone out there is fighting his qualms, but when it is pointed out on social media by the freelance/jobless/same thing pundits, no reporter thinks it's brand new information.

Also read: Sanjay Dutt's release should make patriotic Indians throw up

With an ambitiously packed itinerary, Dutt's agency assured us that he would hold the press conference by 4pm. For a normal person, to get from the airport to Siddhivinayak by afternoon would be on a lucky prayer, but when you're a star it's green lights all the way.

The temple was cleared for Dutt and there was an obligatory skirmish the media had with the guards. By the time our team could update us about his exit from jail, he had almost reached the Bada Kabristan in Marine Lines. A quick visit to his mother's grave later, he zipped back home, and reached by 1.30pm. Having left the Pune airport shortly before 11pm, and a considerable detour away, he was back home by 1.30. Try to wrap your head around that.

All of a sudden there were hoards of fans that had transgressed the police barricades and were scaling the walls for a glimpse of Munnabhai. Later, there was some valid speculation if they were paid fans as until that moment the area was practically devoid of fans and more importantly, it was difficult for even the media to cross the barricade without identity cards. Since I wasn't carrying mine owing to a bag swap I had to carry my microphone everywhere for identification.

The reporters on field didn't stand a chance against the fervent fans, even if they were willing to be trampled and manhandled. Cameras blocked our view, fans blocked their view, and we were on air being asked about visuals that weren't available to us. An enthusiastic and acrobatic fan helpfully informed me that the actor was wearing blue and I didn't know whether to pity him or myself.

Garlands appeared out of nowehere and burdened a visibly overjoyed star for his final homecoming. Dutt went up to his penthouse to meet his five-year-old twins, and "freshen up" before he addressed the media. The mad scarmble for space for the press conference began even as he was in the elevator going up to his penthouse.

We were told he would be down any minute, his publicity personnel were quite clueless by then, as the guards refused to let them go up and they were in the same squished boat that the media was in. News channels were glued to the empty frame of microphones and a lone chair where reporters eager to appear across the channels would sit and pretend to give sound checks. I am guilty of assuring the viewers that he would be done in five minutes, for over half-an-hour.

Necks were craned, cameras poised, tempers flaring as the wait began. And then when he did finally arrive, reporters who seemed sane until then, hugged him, whispered sweet nothings to him, there were selfies galore while the rest of us valiantly tried to hide our smirks.

Photographers who are the bane of journalists decided to heap coals upon our fires of misery and obliterate those of us who wanted to ask him about the public interest litigations (PILs) against him and paved the way for the kind souls who threw Sanju Baba softballs about how he felt in jail, how much of a support Manyata was and other questions that he could discourse upon.

There was an outpour of emotions about how was still unable to believe that he was a free man, how it still hasn't sunk in that he's free, how Manyata is his best half, how difficult prison life is, how Prime Minister Narendra Modi is great and he loves him, how he's a patriot and hence touched his motherland and saluted the flag, interrupted by the arrival of his twins for a family photo op. Some journalists shed a tear or two, some tried to droop the corner of their lips, while the rest of us were screaming hoarse for actual information.

Then at the end of the media-friendly day, Dutt appealed, in a quid pro quo request, to the media that since he had been acquitted in the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act [TADA] case and was only convicted in the Arms case, his name not be mentioned in connection to the 1993 bomb blasts.

At the end of a long, hard, physically exhausting and emotionally draining day for the media Dutt went home.