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Star India senior VP marketing and communication Ajay Vidyasagar
says, "Although our ground event will not take place today,
our on-air telecast will remain unchanged. We will decide over the
next few hours as to when to have the ground event."
Dutt Saheb (as the revered actor-politician was popularly known)
passed away at 11 am this morning following a massive heart attack
at his home in Bandra, north-west Mumbai. He would have turned 76
on 6 June.
The funeral is scheduled to be held at 5 pm this evening at the
Shastri Nagar crematorium in Mumbai's western suburb of Santa Cruz.
Dutt was a man of many parts - actor, social activist and politician
- but he made his name as an actor in a career that spanned nearly
half a century. Born on 6 June, 1929, in present day Pakistan, he
grew up as Balraj Dutt. His family fled to India during the partition
and he came to Mumbai as a student of Jai Hind College.
Dutt's real breakthrough came with Mehboob Khan's magnum opus
Mother India (1957). It was on the sets of what is considered
among the finest movies ever made in India that he fell in love
with his future wife Nargis (who incidentally played his mother
in the film).
Dutt's last movie role was in the 2004 blockbuster hit comedy Munnabhai
MBBS where he played father to real life son Sanjay Dutt.
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Star
India, as a mark of respect to Dutt, has decided to reschedule the
ground event to later this week but the telecast date of the event
will remain unchanged - 4 June at 8 pm.