Weekend

On this weekend, the hatke topic is about a Bollywood movie, which was considered as the best movie ever made in the history of of Hindi(Bollywood) Cinema. This movie was released in 1975, and in the first week , it was termed flop by critics. But after that the movie picked up and did the record business, the name of the movie is Sholay.

Sholay

Directed by Ramesh Sippy .

The film is set in a fictitious village called Ramgarh, where a retired Police Officer Thakur Baldev Singh(Sanjeev Kumar) summons a pair of small time thieves Jai(Amitabhh Bachchan) & Veeru(Dharmendra). He tells them to capture noted dacoit Gabbar Singh(Amjad Khan), who is carrying a govt reward of Rs 50,000. Thakur tells them he will give them additional Rs 20,000, if they bring Gabbar alive to him.

Jai & Veeru fight back the dacoits sent by Gabbar to extort the villagers. Soon afterwards, Gabbar and his goons attack during the festival of Holi. In a tough battle, Jai & Veeru get trapped from all four sided by Gabbar & his cronies. They ask help from Thakur to throw a gun to them which is lying near him, Thakur does not help them. Jai & Veeru fight back and the dacoits run away. The two are, however, upset at Thakur’s inaction, and consider leaving the village. Thakur explains that Gabbar had killed nearly all of his family members, and cut off both his arms a few years earlier, which is why he could not use the gun. He had concealed the dismemberment by always wearing a shawl.

Soon Jai & Veeru find living in Ramgarh very jovial & lively. Veeru is attracted to Basanti (Hema malini), a courageous, talkative young woman who makes her living by driving a Tonga( Horse cart). Jai is drawn to Radha (Jaya Bhadurii), Thakur’s quiet & reclusive widowed daughter-in-law, who silently returns his affections.

Fight between Gabbar’s gang and Jai-Veeru finally result in the capture of Veeru and Basanti by the dacoits. Jai attacks the gang, and frees them, all of them run away with dacoits chasing them.  Jai and Veeru keep on fighting with dacoits, nearly run out of ammunition. Veeru, unaware that Jai was wounded in the gunfight, is forced to leave for more ammunition. Meanwhile, Jai, who is continuing the gunfight single handedly, decides to sacrifice himself by using his last bullet to ignite dynamite sticks on a bridge from close range.

When Veeru comes back, Jai dies in his arms. Angry, Veeru goes after Gabbar and catches the dacoit. Veeru nearly beats Gabbar to death when Thakur appears and reminds Veeru of the promise to hand over Gabbar alive. Thakur uses his spike-soled shoes to severely injure Gabbar and destroy his hands. The police then arrive and arrest Gabbar. In the end Veeru leaves Ramgarh, but finds Basanti waiting for him in the train.

The film had a music by RD Burman with lyrics by Anand Bakshi. The songs became very popular, mainly “Mehbooba Mehbooba”, Koi Haseena Jab Rooth” “ Holi song,” “Yeh Dosti Hum Nahin”. This was the first movie where records/cassettes of dialogues and back ground music were also released.

This is considered as most successful commercial film released in India till date. It celebrated 25 weeks run in more than 100 cinemas , 50 weeks in more than 50 cinemas in the country. It ran for 5 years non stop at Minerva Theatre in Bombay.

So many trade analyst and movie critic have dissected this movie, for finding the one good reason why this movie was so successful. According to my opinion there were many reasons for this movie to be so successful- like screenplay written by Salim Javed which was very taut and it moved at good pace while keeping viewers interest in mind, the writers detailed the even small characters so well .The smaller character played by many actors became so famous, that people still remember them- such as Soorma Bhopali by Jagdeep, Jailer by Asrani, Sambha by MacMohan, Kaalia by Vijoo Khote, Mausiji by Leela Mishra, & Imam Sahib played by AK Hangal. And what to say about one liner which became so famous like “ Kitne Aadmi The” by Gabbar, “Sardar Maine Aapka Namak Khaya Hai” by Kaalia and “Ab Goli Kha” by Gabbar, “Tumhara Naam Kya Hai Basanti”by Jai and many more. The second major reason for moving being successful was its back ground music and songs composed by genius RD Burman, it has been said in those days the sound track which was released by Polydor was so popular that their factory had to work overtime to meet the market demands of cassettes/tapes of songs and background music. Next reason you can attribute to the acting by the lead actors- Sanjeev Kumar’s Thakur, Dharmendra’s Veeru, Amitabh’s Jai, Hema Malini’s Basanti, Jaya Bhaduri’s Radha and Amjad Khan’s Gabbar Singh. Each of these 6 actors lived their roles, and their portrayal of these characters have become immortal. The surprise packet among them was Amjad Khan, who played Gabbar’s character in his debut movie, actually Danny Dengzoppa was to play this role, but he could not do this role because his dates were allotted for film Dharmatama, when first schedule  of Sholay was announced, so Amzad was roped in at the last moment. Lastly the direction of Ramesh Sippy, who handled the ensembled cast so well, that this film became his swan song. He directed many films after Sholay, but could not repeat similar success. The combination of all the above factors were responsible for the mega success of this movie.

Today’s generation will not understand the way movies used to run in those days, now a days in the times of multiplexes if a movie does a good business in first 3 days (ie Friday, Saturday & Sunday), the movie is termed as hit. They will not understand the craze of Sholay, when audience used to wait for hours to book ticket in advance for shows of next week.

So friends, waiting for your feed backs/views/comments on this blog.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

31st Aug, 2018