Veteran Bollywood actor Sunil Dutt, 75, died on Wednesday. He had amazing range: he most famously played an embittered poor young farmer in the classic 1957 melodrama Mother India, and – at the opposite extreme – a clueless rich young urbanite in the classic 1968 comedy-romance Padosan [the title roughly means Girl Next Door].

His last appearance was a cameo in Munna Bhai MBBS, a popular 2003 comedy starring his son Sanjay. It has been reported, by the way, that -- in a reversal of the usual pattern in which Bollywood borrows plots from Hollywood -- director Mira Nair will be remaking Munna Bhai MBBS as a Hollywood movie entitled Gangsta MD.