Tina was just the beginning. Call it the good girls-bad boy syndrome, but Sanjay never fell short of female admiration. Even when he had been sent for drug rehabilitation, there were scores of attractive starlets and heroines who were vocal about their eagerness to work with him, right from Padmini Kolhapure and Poonam Dhillon to a host of others. Stardust magazine, ran a series of reports talking to Dutt's female costars about how much they missed him. One such story went like this: Poonam Dhillon was desperate to know about his whereabouts when he had been whisked away for drug rehab.

She felt protective about him. 'He is so sensitive, you would never want to hurt him,' she confessed. Though they were professional acquaintances, she admitted she 'felt very close to him' whenever they were together. She awaited his return, she said, not just to complete their film Street Singer, . . .