Sholay-Writte as attribute in the yaer of the eath of G.P Sippy.

No film has captured the imagination of the Indian masses than this super hit Sholay simply was a landmark   in Indian film history. Never in Indian film history had a film been made with  equally  advanced direction and production techniques.It appealed universally to all sections of people from Industrialists and professionals to the Rickshaw pullers and sweepers.Its dialogue has now become well entrenched in the Indian Psyche like any nursery rhyme.

          The father-son team of Ramesh and Gippy Sippy wanted to make a classical action adventure and deployed script writers Salim and Javed to write a script..  The film was principally inspired by the Classic film “The Magnificient Seven(Inspired by the seven Samurai by The Japanese filmmaker Kurosawa)as well as the Sergio Leone Italian Westerns like “The Good,Bad and the Ugly” as well as “Once Upon a Time in the West”.(The scene when Gabbar shoots down the Thakur’s family seeking revenge is copied from ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’) Some scenes  were also copied from ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’(The final shoot out and the train robbery had similarities) while the train Scene at the beginning where the dacoits attack a train is taken from the “Great Train Robbery”. A village called Ramnagharm in Bangalore was chosen as the location for shooting after the advice of art director Ram Yedekar.

           The story of an Epic confrontation between good and evil the script was originally based on a story of 2 Junior Army Officer  convicts who were engaged by a senior Army Officer  in capturing a notorious criminal who massacres a senior army officer’s family. However later the story was re-made on the line of 2 Urban based gangsters(Veeru  and Jai) who are recruited by a village Thakur(Sanjeev Kumar plays the roll.In Hindi ‘thakur’ means headman of the village.) to capture a notorious dacoit(Gabbar Singh)This dacoit  to avenge the Thakur’s humiliating capture of him  escapes from prison , kills the Thakur’s family  and amputate’s his arms. The theme of the film is Jai and Veeru confronting Gabar Singh and his dacoits and concludes with Amitabh falling martyr in the cause of defending the villagers at the bridge from the mercy of the dacoits and the Thakur almost avenging his suffering at the hands of Gabbar.

The demarcating point  of this epic is the direction which is classical. From the part when the 2 gangsters and the police Inspector  are confronting dacoits from a running train to the final action scenes the viewer is subjected to undescribable suspense giving him the feeling that he is  part of the film. Most of the film is shot  in the Ramgarh village where the 2 recruits defend the Thakur and the Village from the dacoits led by Gabar. The gun-wielding dacoit action scenes have been unparalleled in Indian Cinema like the Dacoits attack on Ramgarh village during the Holi festival.The most relevant part comes at this point  when the Thakur  is forced to tell his true story(It is all shown in a flashback) regarding his confrontation with Gabbar  after his 2 Recruits have warded off an attack by Gabbar and his men and miss killing Gabbar by a whisker.(He does  pick up a rifle in front of him  when Veeru and. Jai are gheraoed by dacoits)There are also fantastically shot scenes on the Rocky Landscapes,photography unprecedented in Indian Cinema before.(I can never forget a scene when the dacoits are riding their horses in a pack in the sunset just before the part where Veeru and Jai pretend to suurender to Gabbar ‘s men but ultimately kill all but one)  Veeru and Jai,though the closest of friends have contrasting traits which are depicted in their romantic scenes ,directed with great precision.Veru is a compulsive drinker and an Extrovert while Jai is an Introvert. It is beautifully revealed in the scenes in which they express their love for their women.Veeru is in love with a tongawali called Basanti ,a chatter box,and Veeru flirts with her in various parts trying to woo her. In Contrast Jai hardly utters a word to his lover Radha and in a most subtle manner their love is depicted with Jai playing he Mouth Organ and Radha putting off the lamps. There is no exaggerated violence as we often saw in Foreign Westerns or Indian Films .When the village boy   Ahmed   is tortured to death the scene is cut to Gabbar’s killing an ant to Ahmed’s horse carrying his dead body to the village. is shown.The scene showing the   Thakur’s arms  actually being  chopped of  by Gabbar  is also excluded .Similarly the scene when Gabar shoots down Thakur’s 6 year old grandson(Avenging his humiliating arrest at the hands of the Thakur) is cut to Gabbar just pointing a gun and Thakur just getting off the train after reaching his home town station.The manner in which the dacoit Gabbar is introduced is classical when first only his legs are photographed walking up and down on a rock  in his den asking questions to his subordinate dacoits (His 3  dacoits have just returned after being humiliated at the hands of the Thakur’s 2 new  recruits  in the village where they go to loot) in his den and then only when when he bursts out in anger is his whole figure depicted.The mixture of comedy with pathos is  also blended  like making a perfect meal with a main course and a desert.The scenes of the jailer(Enacted by Asrani  projecting himself as a jailer of the British period) sensing a conspiracy in the jail and attemting to catch the culprits and Soorma Bhoopali(Jagdeep) are beautifully merged into the film like eating somedelicious  sweets after consuming the tastiest  hot spicy

           The Acting of Amjad Khan who enacted the role of Gabbar may rank as not only one of the all-time great negative role acting in Indian Cinema but of world Cinema History.Some  of his acting has been impersonated  from the villain Elli Wallach in the Sergi Leone Film “For a Few Dollars More’.Sanjeev Kumar as the Thakur(Village Headman) displayed great skills and sensitivity and the anger and grief he expresses against Gabbar  was an exhibition of genius.Amitabh as Jai although a very quiet,underplayed character  displays genius  in his final scenes when he is shot  on the bridge and in his final death scene.He stays alone at the bridge  combating the dacoits as his friend Veeru returns to the village to take his lover Basanti back as well as get more ammunition.In the end he blows up the bridge but just after a bullet runs through his chest.When he walks amost dying before he  fires his last bullet on a bomb to blow up the bridge is one of the most dramatic scenes ever witnessed on the Screen. The eyes he reveals virtually tell the story.Dharmendra,though this time not cast in orthodox he-man fashion does justice to his character a an Extrovert and in the film he effectively blends anger with humour Significantly Dharmendra played his first ever comedy part in the film.( in the scene when he is drunk and pledges to commit suicide if Basanti does not marry him.).     .His vengeance role(He goes singlehandedly to avenge his friend Jai’s death to Gabbar’s den”  after his friend Jai is killed showed all film buffs that in roles of Vengeance he was an absolute master.The 2 heroines Hema Malini as Basant and Jaya Badhuri as Radha  reciprocate their characters  in total balance.

 The other merit is that it also shows the human character revealed  in people fighting against oppression.  The 2 gangsters return the money  offered by  the Thakur  to them  after they hear of his plight and pledge to capture the notorious dacoit Gabbar and save the Village without exchange for financial reward.It is almost like seeing 2gangsters reformed into moral people fighting for a just cause.(the dialogue when Jai tells Veeru that he wishes to marry the Thakur’s daughter in law Radha and that now days even thieves and dacoits can be reformed) The Imam Sabh (Blind man enacted by Hangal )similarly shows his great spiritual qualities by stating that even after he  lost his son(Ahmed was tortured to death by Gabbar and his men threatening that all villagers would face the same consequence if they did not hand over Jai and Veeru to them) he wished that God gave  him more sons to  become Martyrs .He defies his fellow villagers who want Jai and Veeru to surrender to Gabbar(Veeru significantly is ready to surrender with Jai if the villagers are convinced that it would save the lives of their children from the attacks of he dacoits) by saying that it is still his wish that they stay although his son has been killed.Although no more in the Idealism of the Independence Movement,the Emergency period(When the film was made) in it’s recent preceding years and after it’s conclusion threw up a set of youth who wished to combat corruption and Injustice like the J.P Movement or the Naxalbari Movement. (Internationally The Vietnamese had just won the War against America)

              Tragically one scene had to be censored where the Thakur kills Gabbar by kicking him to pieces with his nails fitted in his shoes.Here he breaks down and cries weeping long and hard,but he all he feels is emptiness.Being shot in the Emergency period the government disallowed a police officer  could take the law into his own hands.The scene had to be re-acted with the police arriving and the Thakur giving Gabbar in after an  Inspector leading a police contingent tells him, “What is it that today you place the  rule of law below yourself ?Remember the reputation you had as a defender of the law to the extent hat your name is famous till today”.Thus the film lost a crucial icing on the cake. An epic climax was curtailed   and it ridiculed Sanjeev Kumar’s performance  which was built up to this final end, like stopping a racehorse winning a race at the wining post.

         However in an Overall perspective could this film be called  a Classic in the truest sense and the greatest ever Indian Film?To me Sholay falls short of both these accolades by just a margin. It lacks the classic Ingredients that made films like ‘Mother India ‘Mughal E Azam a Classic in India or films like ‘Dr Zhivago ‘or Casabanca in the West.

There are flaws in the story.One is that it is highly unlikely that 2 urban based gangsters would wish to settle in a village as what Veeru suggests to Jai.Only idealistic people who wanted political change like Naxalite Students(Era of the Maoist Naxalbati Movement in India ) or Gandhian youth from towns wished to settle in village life to work with peasants..Urban based people aspiring for a better life would never wish to settle in a village. Secondly ,the Thakurs have always been feudal lords and cannot identify their interests with the broad peasantry.Traditionally they were opressors of the poor peasantry.In the film  the Thakur(Traditionally they have been opressors of poor peasants and a major landed class) is enacted as a defender of the villagers which is a contradiction.

The film also is a copy of Western films and cannot be called a purely original one,without taking away the genius of Ramesh Sippy  in assimilating a Western epic to the Indian Conditions.I would personally rank Sholay with film slike ‘A few Dollars More” , “A Fistful of Dollars” or “Good ,bad and the Ugly”.(Action scenes and direction is superior in those Films but Sholay has a more interesting script)It would rank one notch  below Classic Westerns like ‘Gunfight at O.K Corall’ and “The Magnificent Seven.”Sholay although the best film of it’s type(best Indian action film ever)  does not have the philosophical depth of  films like “Mera Naam Joker”,(Story of a Joker who makes  the world  laugh  but cries within his heart reminiscent of the life of Charlie Chaplin)the link with social reality in rural India  revealed in “Mother India”(Story of oppression of landlordism in rural India) or the script of “Awaara”  where the relationship of how environment changes the course of a man’s life is depicted to perfection.(The idealism of the post-Independence Nehruvian era shown in the life of a tramp enacted by Raj Kapoor whose own real father who is a judge  convicts him )No Indian Western has ever been comparable/whethjer it maybe 'Mera Gaon Mera Desh', 'Khote Sikhey' or 'China Gate.'

           Ultimately it is one ‘s personal choice how you rate this film but no one can  sum up Sholay better than Shekar Kapoor who stated that there has never been a more defining film in Indian History and Indian Film history cane be depicted to  the equivalent of a B.C and A.D .

By Harsh Thakor

Help from book by Anupama Chopra on ‘Sholay’ and 100 greatest films ‘by Stardust’ as well as friend Pankaj.(Film enthusiast)

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