Golden Sholay

As it celebrates its 50th anniversary this year in August, filmmaker ANUBHAV SINHA tells FARHANA FAROOK why the super success of Sholay is sheer serendipity

- By FARHANA FAROOK

Director Ramesh Sippy's Sholay hit the screens on August 15, 1975 to coincide with the celebrations of Independence Day. The film's poster played it up as the 'greatest story ever told' with the 'greatest star cast ever assembled'. Said to be inspired from Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) and Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West (1968), Sholay was a 204-minute tale of crime and punishment. But the initial dismissal of the film as 'a poor imitation of spaghetti Westerns' left Ramesh Sippy distraught.

Debutant Amjad Khan as bandit Gabbar Singh was dubbed a nonconforming villain, his supposedly 'weak' voice dulling the thunder. Amitabh Bachchan's character Jai was bumped off in the climax leaving audiences disenchanted by the hero's unlikely exit. But a few days later, in an uncanny turnaround, the never-seen-before spectacle including its dialogue got the ticket windows working overtime.

Apart from the heroic characters played by Sanjeev Kumar, Dharmendra and Amitabh, Amjad's psychopathic Gabbar became an allegorical creature in film lore. "Jab bachcha raat ko rota hai, toh maa kehti hai bete so ja ... nahi toh Gabbar Singh aa jayega!" says he in a scene validating his myth. While Sholay was bullet-driven, the subtext was emotional and entertaining with the peripheral characters spawning spoofs and parodies till date. Sholay played for five years at Mumbai's Minerva cinema. Five decades later, it's seen as a pillar of Hindi cinema.

Director Anubhav Sinha, who has been a Sholay buff all his life, fondly recalls the impact and influence the film had on his young mind. In his own words:

HUGE CANVAS