Sanjay Dutt at a city hotel on Saturday. Picture by Aranya Sen

Meet the actor formerly known as Sanjay Dutt. These days, he?s Bhai for some, Baba for others, Munnabhai for the rest.

Last weekend in Calcutta was dedicated to Munnabhai the brand ambassador, as he made fleeting appearances at dealers? meets and product launches for steel bars (Elegant) and undergarments (Rupa).

Surrounded by organisers, chhota-mota actors, secretary, security-people and friends in all the four categories, Dutt was all but off-limits for the media.

?He is press-shy, you see,? revealed the organiser. So what about the ?guaranteed interviews?? The guarantee period was carried over to the next day after a tortuous two-hour wait while a semi-clad Deepal Shaw and Rakhi Sawant in next to nothing gyrated on a makeshift stage.

Day II of Dutt duty: after playing three more hours of the wait-and-watch game ? no Sawant or Shaw, this time ? the man wakes up (he was supposedly sleeping till 4 pm!) and announces in the corridor: ?I?m only ready to talk about steel bars.?

A couple of moments of stunned silence later, a million-dollar question from a fellow journalist: ?Can you bend a steel bar?? Legal, logical but only good enough for a two-word copy: ?Haven?t tried.?

With no other steel questions ready to bend the steely determination, Dutt started walking and the only option was to engage in a walk-the-talk with the steel authorities not within earshot.

What do you ask an actor who refuses to talk about his two most eagerly-awaited forthcoming releases? ?I am not allowed to talk about Parineeta or Munnabhai 2,? was the stock reply to queries about the two Vidhu Vinod Chopra productions.

Can he talk about Calcutta? ?Yes, I love the place. My mother was born here and I love coming back to the city ? to shoot for films or even otherwise,? says the man who spent more than a month in November in the city for Pradeep Sarkar?s Parineeta.

Softening a bit, Dutt held a window ajar to life beyond steel. Asked on his recurrent association with the Vidhu Vinod Chopra clan (he is also slated to do a cameo in Vidhu?s own directorial project Yagna starring Amitabh Bachchan) and Sanjay Gupta (they are coming together again in Zinda), he says: ?I believe in relationships. When I work with a particular person or production team, they become family to me and I like to stay part of the family.?

And it?s the family connection that finds him doing blink-and-miss roles in multistarrers like Tango Charlie and the forthcoming Dus. Dutt also doesn?t regret having been part of a flop like Shabd. ?It was a unique shooting experience. I choose to treasure it.? Where, in a steel chest?