Sanjay Dutt to act, dance for jail fundraiser

The acting and dancing bug has again bitten Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt who is serving a 42-month sentence at the Yerawada Central Jail (YCJ) here.

Sanjay, 54, along with some four dozen other inmates, has been selected to perform in a stage drama at a welfare show organised by the state Prisons Department, here next Thursday.

The mega-annual show will be held at the Bal Gandharva Auditorium here, officials said.

Raring to do what he loves, Sanjay has been polishing his acting-dancing skills and furiously rehearsing for the show inside the YCJ premises since the past fortnight along with the other inmates.

Though jail officials remain tight-lipped on the show details, it is learnt that Sanjay and his team will perform the famous 'Lungi dance' from the recent Shah Rukh Khan-Deepika Padukone blockbuster "Chennai Express."

Besides, he may also dance to a patriotic song and a number from his superhit movie, "Lage Raho Munnabhai".

The rehearsals for the two-hour final show are carried out in the community hall regularly without any of the inmates disturbing their routine of doing jail chores.

For instance, Sanjay has been assigned the task of making big and small paper bags which are sold to the outside world through NGOs and he also gets a nominal payment for his labour.

However, for the main show, Sanjay, who sports a long salt-and-pepper beard-moustache now, and the others are likely to be permitted saloon facilities to get a shave, hair-cut and pedicure-manicure. He will get a chance to get some make-up applied by a make-up man and don costumes to be brought in by a designer.

Sanjay and the performing inmates shall be transported to-and-from the Bal Gandharva Auditorium, around five kms away under tight security.

On May 16, Sanjay had surrendered before a Mumbai court and a week later shifted to YCJ, Pune to serve the remainder of a five-year sentence after he was convicted in the March 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.