BY DR. MALA CHAKRAVORTY*
Fifty years ago, Sholay released in India. Those were the days when going to the movies with family or friends was the main source of entertainment for most people. As a diehard movie buff, the release of any new movie was something I looked forward to with great anticipation. My goal in life at the time was to watch as many movies as I could possibly manipulate my parents to take me to, and the ones they were not interested in, find ways to watch with friends. Life was very simple in those days!!
Sholay was released with great fanfare! The tagline said, “The Greatest Story Ever Told” on 70 mm with a stellar cast. At that time, we learnt about movies from magazines, so we didn’t know much except that it looked like an action movie set in a rural backdrop. Normally, I would have skipped this one as my preference was for comedies or family dramas in urban settings. But I was a sucker for multi-starrers, and this one had my favorite stars (the couple now known as the Bachchans) with Sanjeev Kumar as a bonus. Plus, it had been in the making for over two years and there was a buzz about something big happening in popular culture!
So, after weeks of tension about getting advance tickets, I went to watch Sholay with my parents and little brother. I don’t remember the exact details, but I remember the feeling of awe at the sheer mastery of filmmaking. Even on the 30 mm screen, the grandeur of the cinematography in terms of landscape, action sequences, dialogue, background score, and performances all combined to hit a raw nerve, and I walked out in a daze after three hours of being enraptured by the story unfolding on celluloid. My parents and brother were also quiet; none of us felt like analyzing the movie as we usually did (that came later).
The next day I learnt from my friends that large chunks of the movie had been cut out, but the filmmakers would release the full movie at a later date. I had to wait a long time to watch the full movie in 70 mm. In the meanwhile, those missing pieces were released in audio form, and soon I (and most people in my generation) knew the dialogues by heart! Since then, I have watched Sholay multiple times at various stages in my life, but whenever I watch it, that sense of awe returns, and I find myself mouthing the dialogues as if I had just heard them.
Much has been written about Sholay and its making in the last 50 years. Considered a flop with mixed reviews when it was first released, the movie slowly became a blockbuster and held the record for top-grossing Hindi film for two decades. Now it is considered a classic, a landmark in Indian cinema history, and given the credit for redefining the very art of filmmaking. It came at a transitional time in history when Indian society was changing in the face of modernization, technological advances, and increased exposure to Western culture. The film was spearheaded by the young writer-duo Salim-Javed and a young director, Ramesh Sippy, who had the courage to take creative risks to capture the essence of this emergent new society. They deftly blended Western technology-driven, fast-paced narrative structures and untheatrical dialogue delivery with traditional themes of friendship, loyalty, sacrifice, vengeance, and justice into the well-established ‘masala film’ genre that was a seamless amalgamation of action, romance, comedy, tragedy, and drama. The end result was an electrifying experience that impacted popular culture for generations and continues to inspire and entertain audiences even today.
To me, Sholay is more than a movie, it is a slice of my past! Every time I watch it, I feel an emotional connection with the inhabitants of Ramgarh, even sharing their fear of the odious Gabbar and his henchmen. I still feel weepy when Jai tricks Veeru into letting him sacrifice himself and when Radha shuts the only open window in her life. I hate violence of any kind but still wish they had kept the original ending. To me, at this stage in my life, Sholay brings back memories of lost times, lost loved ones, and the lost pleasure in the small things in life. I believe every generation has its own iconic movies like Sholay that continue to stir something deeply personal in each of us, reminding us of the power of storytelling that never truly grows old!
* Mala Chakravorty has a Ph.D. in American Women’s fiction from I.I.T. Delhi, and Master’s degrees in English and American Studies from Delhi University and Smith College, Massachusetts. She has worked in the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and Women’s Studies Program at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu. She switched from academics to Information Technology in 1999.
