Ajit Karn
Sholay: It’s not a Movie, It’s Friendship and Love between two Friends
Sholay had unimpressive beginnings (industry insiders typically predicted that this big-budget movie’s “unconventional” elements would make it a resounding flop), but it exploded onto 70mm screens to become one of the Bombay film industry’s greatest success stories — the movie that would, for a sizable audience, unmistakably embody the masala blockbuster. When it was first released on August 15th, 1975 (Indian Independence Day), it played to packed houses at important urban locations like the enormous Plaza Cinema in downtown New Delhi for more than two years, becoming the highest-grossing Indian film ever made, a title it held for almost two decades. It is without a doubt one of the most influential Hindi films of all time, and when asking Indian cinema buffs how many times they have watched it, responses in the double tens are not unusual. In fact, it was so well-liked that not only its catchy melodies but also its chic dialogues were released on audiocassettes and are still remembered by followers throughout India. Sholay, one of the movies that contributed to Amitabh Bachchan becoming the undisputed ’70s superstar, propelled Amjad Khan to notoriety as the vicious bandit Gabbar Singh, and is credited with ushering in the “supervillain” period. Sholay not only gave the now-global Western mythology a distinctly Indian twist, but also established new benchmarks for action scenes and cinematography, as shown in the breathtaking opening train scene.
The movie’s entertainment value and cinematic skill remain strong, making it a good starting point for newcomer Western audiences interested in learning more about the “masala film” phenomena. A three-hour multi-course banquet of emotional flavours, including slapstick comedy, romance, violent action, social and family melodrama, and of course, a half-dozen or so song-and-dance sequences, is what is meant when the word masala, which literally means “spice,” is used to describe an action-adventure-romance. A disconcerting emotional roller-coaster trip over genre terrains that “properly” belong to three or four separate films is occasionally indigestible to first-time Western viewers. Another unsettling characteristic is the apparent propensity of Indian filmmakers to “quote” themes or images from Western movies (e.g., Sholay’s popular critical designation as a “curry Western,” and its blatant allusions to Charlie Chaplin, Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). Again, inexperienced viewers sometimes mistake this for a ridiculous parody of “original” Hollywood concepts rather than an inventive tribute, leading to an unorganised pastiche. However, the fact that dozens of masala films are made each year, including a few successes, implies that the genre may have its own aesthetic logic among those who are open to it. Sholay, the most well-known movie in this genre, is helpful for bringing up and problematicalizing cross-cultural cinematic tropes.
Summary: A lone police officer exits a train at a small-town stop in search of “Thakur Sahib” (thakur, literally “lord, master,” is a respectful title for a member of one of the landlord castes who trace their lineage to ancient kshatriyas or warrior-aristocrats; Sahib means “sir”). As the credits start to roll, we see as he rides his horse through an area that resembles the Badlands to reach Ramgarh (also known as “Rama’s fort”). Here he meets the Thakur, Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar), a retired policeman who wears a grey shawl all the time. Singh asks the visitor to track down and bring him two criminals: the scruffy, always happy Veeru (Dharmendra) and the lanky, melancholy Jaidev, or just “Jai” (Amitabh Bacchan). Singh tells the officer about his first encounter with the renowned serial criminals, two years before, when he was taking them to prison on a freight train, in response to the officer’s question about what work they would be suitable for. They immediately defend the train and their injured captive against a seemingly endless horde of horsemen after bragging to him about their bravery. But when they flip a coin to determine whether to take the wounded officer to a hospital (putting themselves in prison) or to flee, their moral ambiguity is exposed (leaving him to die). They are motivated to act morally by “chance” in a recurring pattern. The flashback closes with Singh’s visitor pledging to look for the couple but cautioning that it could be difficult to find them if they have escaped from prison and are on the lam.
Cut to the opening musical sequence, which has Veeru and Jai stealing a motorbike with a sidecar and breaking into a raucous “song of the road” that resembles Raj Kapoor’s 1950s “vagabond” reputation (cf. Awara, Shri 420). However, in this instance, it is not merely a celebration of irrational, vaguely anti-social freedom, but rather an ingeniously choreographed male love-duet, as they declare their enduring friendship (dosti) while taking a joyride through a picturesque obstacle course sprinkled with banyan trees and helpless country folk.
They then contact a dishonest but hilarious Muslim timber trader named Surma Bhopali (Jagdeep), who makes them an odd offer: he would give them in to the police, collect the reward of 2000 rupees, and divide it with them when they are freed from jail. Cut to the prison and another levity-filled scene, with a lunatic jailer (comic actor Asrani) who brags about having studied under the British, paying tribute to Chaplin’s Great Dictator. The cunning couple quickly outwit him and flee, but when they go back to Bhopali to get the thousand rupees they were promised, he turns them in to the police. They are tracked down by the Thakur’s agent once they are back in custody, and when they are let out, Singh is waiting for them outside the prison gate, bringing the humorous digression to a close and bringing the framing story back into focus. Singh offers them the 50,000 rupee prize that the police had promised in exchange for helping them apprehend infamous bandit (daku) Gabbar Singh. They get a 5,000 rupee advance from him, and he guarantees them another 5,000 when they get to Ramgarh.
The guys meet Basanti, a chatty female tonga (horsecart) driver, as they arrive by train (Hema Malini). Veeru is enthralled despite Jai being bored by her constant speech. Soon after arriving in Ramgarh, Jai notices the Thakur’s daughter-in-law Radha (Jaya Bhaduri, who would eventually become his bride), who is dressed in a white widow’s sari. The two want to plunder the home by night and flee quickly after receiving their 10,000 rupees from the Thakur and seeing the wealth in his safe. However, when they were about to do this, Radha interrupts them, provides them the safe key, and instructs them to remove her jewellery (a symbol of the fortunate position of a married lady) as she no longer needs it. They are humiliated into abandoning their scheme.
Basanti assists a blind maulvi (Islamic preacher) in descending a hill while on her way to collect green mangoes for her elderly aunt, displaying the communal unity that exists in Ramgarh. Despite the fact that doing so would leave him alone as he ages, he urges her to assist him in persuading his only son, Ahmad, to accept a job in the city. Veeru and Jaidev “teach” Basanti how to operate a gun while shooting down green fruit for her in the mango orchard.
When the dacoits show up and demand their grain tribute, the village’s daily routine is upended. Veeru and Jaidev help the Thakur drive the people away when he refuses to pay. They go back to Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan), who punishes them cruelly for their mission’s failure.
Cut to a scene of Holi celebrations in the village. Holi is a stock motif in many Hindi movies; see, for example, the corresponding scene in Mother India. Amidst a shower of coloured powders and dyes, Veeru and Basanti dance and sing a sensual duet, but Jai can only watch the sombre Radha from a distance. The celebrations are broken up by a vicious onslaught by Gabbar’s band, who almost murder the heroes before being forced off. Afterward, a lengthy flashback in which Veeru reveals the reason for his powerlessness and his animosity towards Gabbar Singh is prompted by his disdain at the Thakur’s refusal to aid them at a key juncture (by throwing them a pistol). (Intermission)
When Veeru and Jaidev, horrified by the Thakur’s tale, vow to kill Gabbar Singh, the Thakur reminds them that he wants the outlaw alive. A villager brings news that gypsies—known to supply arms to the dacoits—have arrived in the area. Cut to a dance sequence in the gypsy camp, featuring the hypnotic song Mehbooba (“Beloved,” sung by R. D. Burman himself), with sensual (to Indian ears) Middle Eastern-style music and heavily Persianized lyrics. While Gabbar Singh is distracted by the show, Veeru and Jai enter the camp. In the ensuing skirmish, Jai is wounded. As he returns home, Radha rushes to meet him and the Thakur realizes her feelings.
The blind maulvi receives a letter from his urban brother, informing him that he has found a job for Ahmad; however, the boy refuses to leave his aged father. It being Monday, Basanti goes to a temple to ask Shiva for a good husband (as unmarried girls typically do). Veeru briefly impersonates the deity, but is found out. As Basanti drives away in anger, Veeru sings to her “Anger makes a pretty girl even prettier.” Veeru now tells Jai that he wants to marry Basanti, and asks his buddy to intercede with her aunt. Jai finally does, but the aunt is horrified by Jai’s description of Veeru’s lifestyle of drinking, gambling, and whoring. Rejected, Veeru gets drunk and threatens to kill himself by leaping from the village watertank. The dialog to this famous scene includes comic asides on Veeru’s use of English.
1st villager: Brother, what is this “suicide” thing?
2nd villager: You see, when English people croak, they call it “suicide”!
At last, Basanti’s old aunt relents and agrees to the match.
The blind maulvi’s son Ahmad, departing for his new job in the city, is waylaid and murdered by Gabbar’s men as revenge for the Holi debacle. His dead body carries a letter from Gabbar, threatening worse retaliation if Veeru and Jai are not surrendered to the dacoits. As the old maulvi weeps over his dead son, the villagers angrily tell the Thakur that they cannot take any more; a debate ensues over nonviolence versus fighting back. But the maulvi shames the villagers by asking Allah why He didn’t give him more sons to sacrifice as “martyrs” for the village. Veeru and Jai proceed to the rendezvous point, and manage to outwit and slaughter Gabbar’s men.
Back in Ramgarh, the Thakur’s old servant tells Jai how happy Radha used to be before the massacre—leading to a flashback to another Holi scene, when her wedding was being negotiated. Jai resolves to ask for her hand, and the Thakur goes to Radha’s father, urging that, although a widow, she be permitted to begin a new life. The men agree on this.
Basanti is pursued by Gabbar’s men, and Veeru tries to save her. Both are captured. In a famous scene, Gabbar forces Basanti to dance in the hot sun, threatening to shoot her lover if she stops. She sings, “I will dance as long as there is breath left in my body.” At one point, the dacoits make her dance on broken glass (recalling the climactic dance sequence in Pakeezah). Needless to say, Jai comes to the rescue, the dacoits are slain, Thakur Baldev Singh takes his revenge on Gabbar, and (some of) the lovers live on happily.
Sholay presents interesting parallels with its predecessor by nearly two decades, Mehboob Khan’s Mother India, notably in the enduring trope of the daku (Indian English “dacoit”) or highwayman—an outlaw whose popular representations span the gamut from freedom-loving Robin Hood to rapacious sociopath. In the earlier film, the mother’s dark, younger son Birju, driven by well-justified hatred for the parasitic village moneylender who has ruined the family, eventually becomes the leader of a dacoit band; he appears as a dashing, richly-dressed horseman, who is primarily interested in settling a score against feudalistic oppression; yet when he finally abducts the moneylender’s daughter, his own mother rises to destroy him. In contrast, the dakus of Sholay—from their first appearance in the flashback of the train-shootout—are unambiguously evil and bent on carnage, yet they are apparently ensconced in the very heart of the nation (the film’s visual setting is the plateau country of the northern Deccan, India’s midsection), and the forces of social order (here focused in the brooding patriarch, Thakur Baldev Singh) are powerless to defeat them. Indeed, the sadistic Gabbar Singh has brutally murdered this “Father India’s” two sons and has literally cut off his law-administering arms (cf. the comparable though “accidental” mutilation of the father in Mother India). To strike back, Singh must (as he puts it) “use iron to cut iron,” replacing his slain offspring and severed arms with two “adopted” criminal “hands,” who alone possess the requisite bravery (and moral ambivalence) to track down the monster in his lair.
Significantly, a mere six weeks before the premiere of Sholay, on June 26 1975, another self-styled “Mother India,” Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, claiming that anti-social forces imperiled the nation and that draconian measures were required to prevent chaos, imposed a “State of Emergency,” suspending constitutional rights and jailing thousands of political opponents. In retrospect, Sippy’s cinematic epic appears as a surprisingly dark and prescient parable of the erosion of traditional order and the brutalization of politics in the once-happy village of Ramgarh—the Nation writ cinemascope.
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Sholay has been the subject of two book length studies to date. Wimal Dissanayake and Malti Sahai’s Sholay, a cultural reading (New Delhi: Wiley Eastern, 1992), attempts a comprehensive scholarly study that sets the film within the broader history of popular cinema in India. Anupama Chopra’s Sholay, the making of a classic (New Delhi, Penguin Boooks India, 2000) is an inside look at the film’s production, based on interviews with the director, stars, and crew members.
