The revelations about the legal status of Sanjay- Maanyata-Rhea alliance have thrown up interesting questions, says Shunali Shroff

Consider this story of the two Mrs Dutts - one  Mrs Dutt who, until recently, was Mrs Dutt  but claimed to be Mrs Paes  and the other  Mrs Dutt who says she is Mrs Dutt but is in fact, Mrs Meraj Rehman!

Is this too mind boggling? Does it sound like some sort of a lateral thinking puzzle to test your logic?

Let me simplify it for you then. Rhea Dutt got pregnant a few years ago and declared she had married the father of her child, Leander Paes. We saw lovely pictures of mom, dad and the baby. As it turns out, her divorce from Sanjay Dutt has come through only a month ago. So, by rights, she was Mrs Dutt until last month and I dare say it was a right she exercised to its maximum potential. But since she also chose to marry Leander she has coexisted over the past few years as both Mrs Dutt and Mrs Paes. Maanyata on the other hand is married to Sanjay Dutt and she is the new Mrs Dutt even though her previous husband has stated that they are not even divorced legally. So she is allegedly both Mrs Rehman and Mrs Dutt.

So, basically between these two marriages at least one party if not both have kept two marriages going at the same time and yet it turns out that as things stand today (since Rhea’s and Sanjay’s divorce came through only last month and since Maanyata is still not divorced from her previous husband), that there is in fact no Mrs Dutt at all.
Clearly the people mentioned above disagree with this legal mumbo jumbo and perhaps feel life’s too short to allow matters of the heart to be governed by constitutional laws. Who wants to wait it out in legal courts and lose time when one can start being man and wife right away? Why let a marriage come in the way of another marriage? It’s just a legal formality.

But what I am really curious about is Leander’s role in all this. Is mixed doubles his thing off the court too? Was he ok with his wife being financially looked after by another man while she lived with him and their baby? Perhaps he liked the idea of being a silent beneficiary after all. And what of the law regarding the baby? When a married woman has a baby out of wedlock (odd phrase isn’t it), legally the child should take on the wedded husband’s name isn’t it?

Maybe, I am being regressive and it’s time to accept and embrace socially ordained marriages as well as once accepts the legally sanctioned ones. Perhaps that’s the order of the day. All it takes is a good PR person to spread the word that you are now Mr and Mrs So and So and that’s it. If one has decided that one is Mrs Dutt now and not Mrs Rehman, then one is indeed Mrs Dutt.

But what of the pivot in the wheel? Sanjay Dutt. A man who never learned the word ‘no’. Not for providing unlimited finances to an ex, nor for submitting to a fudgy Goa marriage. After all sharafat ki bhi kuch had hoti hai…Dutt confounds me. As does the horrorscope of his life and his ability to endure it. It is a life ruled entirely by Murphy’s law and at the age of fifty, no cruel Gods can grudge him the fistful of happiness that he desperately seeks. Legal or otherwise.

Oh hey! By the way you should know I am Mrs Shah Rukh Khan. Yes! I am only waiting for him to tell the press about it. Of course I know he is married, but then so am I. What difference does it make, huh?

PS: Living surely is an art. I must take a course.