A look at Sholay

Amitabh as Jai, Dharam as Veeru, Sanjeev as Thakur and Amjad as Gabbar in this rare picture from the sets of Sholay.

The movie starts out in the classic western style - a dusty railway platform in some small town/village in India called Rampur. The first spoken words in the movie are not till at least 5 minutes in the movie. (It is worth noting that Ramesh Sippy ,the director, was not trying to save any time)

Among the other impressive things that I am reminded of this movie is the setting. Set in typical rural setting, all with the village overlooked by the Thakur’s haweli on the neighbouring hill and surrounded by rocky mountains. What better place for bandits to terrorize the people.

Thakur Baldev Singh played so memorably by Sanjeev Kumar was perfect as the vengeful ex-cop who has his hands chopped off. Hard to believe, but Sanjeev Kumar was only 37 years old, and yet manages to convice us that he is 55 at some places in the movie and 60 in others.

And who can forget Amjad Khan, in his debut movie as Gabbar Singh. It would be a waste of words to describe the popularity of this character. Undoubtedly his opening sequence is the most repeated dialogue in all of hindi cinema. (Tidbit: In high-school, I once one a piece of candy from my physics teacher for reciting this dialogue in entirety during class – the teacher was impressed enough to not pick on me for the rest of the term!!)

And of course, Mr AB himself. Way cooler than Dharmendra, he played the wry-humored Jai with aplomb. Who can forget the scene where Veeru in drunken stupor has climber the water tower and is threatening to jump. Basanti runs to Jai and implores him to help her get Veeru down or he’ll die. With infinite patience, Jai pours tea from his cup in the saucer and proceeds to drink it. The sheer coolness exuded by this man makes it so easy why he is still India’s most popular actor at well-past 60 and why BBC picked him as the superstar of the millenium over any other actor IN THE WORLD.

What made Sholay a cult classic was however the additional fact that all the bits and pieces roles were immensely popular. Asrani as the Jailer was hilarious (he played the Jailer in an Adnan Sami video in 2002!), and Jagdeep as Surma Bhopali was unforgettable. Although both had roles lasting a screen time of only 10 mins each (in a 3 and half hour movie), yet they carried these roles with them throughout the rest of their careers.

This being a brief review makes me stop here, but I’ll get back to Sholay in a few days/weeks. We’ll delve into more aspects of this absolutely incredible film then.