Sholay continues to dazzle as an epic in popular culture even fifty years after its release
Kaveree Bamzai
Kaveree Bamzai
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14 Aug, 2025
Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan in Sholay
RAMESH SIPPY HAD famously wanted to retain the original ending of Sholay, where instead of being handed over to the police, Gabbar Singh remains at the mercy of Thakur who beats him to death with his spiked shoes. Ramesh’s father, the construction mogul and film producer GP Sippy (or Gopaldas Parmanand Sipahimalani) stepped in when the Central Board of Film Certification objected. He told his 26-year-old son that such violence would not be palatable, especially during the Emergency.
But when Sholay: Final Cut is released at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, lovingly restored by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur’s Film Heritage Foundation, film lovers will see its three-hour-24-minute long version with RD Burman’s music, and not with the musical arrangement by Raju Singh based on the original score. It will also not be in the present 3D version seen on streaming and YouTube since 2013. Both were additions made by Sasha Sippy, Ramesh’s nephew, and contested legally by Ramesh twice. He lost both times. This is the second time this version will be viewed. The first was at Il Cinema Ritrovato Film Festival at Bologna, Italy, under a starlit sky.
India’s most beloved film will finally be free of the family dispute that has assailed it for so long. Ramesh Sippy who parted with the rights to Sholay, along with five other films he made for Sippy Films, is expected to be present at the Toronto screening. The film changed his career, that of almost everyone associated with it, and of those who watched it. As writer Nasreen Munni Kabir, who did the English subtitles for the restored version, says, “It was the first action film with great polish, but what stays in audiences’ mind are characters and dialogue. And few films can boast of such a deep connection.”
It is a connection that continues across advertisements, movies, everyday conversations, across generations, across India. Almost everyone has a Sholay story. Says Namrata Rao, the director of Angry Young Men, a Netflix documentary that details the relationship between the writers of Sholay, Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, “I first saw Sholay as a 15-year-old, on the afternoon of January 26, 1996 on Doordarshan. We had a Republic Day programme and buffet lunch in our DDA colony that day. Everybody was eager to finish the lunch and reach home in time for it. I was so thrilled that day! And so enchanted by the movie. I had heard—it’s the best movie ever, and it totally lived up to the hype.”
As is now well known, the initial response to it was anything but epic. It released in Bombay to two weeks of poor reviews and critical industry reactions. Trade Guide called it “choley”. A critic said it “was full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” But something changed, especially after the release of the film’s dialogues by Polygram in a three-LIP dialogue set. Gabbar (the late Amjad Khan) became the byword for evil, Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) and Veeru (Dharmendra) became the template for bromance, even the minor characters, from Soorma Bhopali (Jadgeep) to the Jailor (Govardhan Asrani), were celebrated above and beyond their screen time.
For a supposed action film, its music became legendary. ‘Yeh Dosti’ was an anthem for friendship, ‘Mehbooba Mehbooba’ was an item song that became an earworm, and ‘Holi ke Din’ was a much needed light-hearted moment in the film. Hindi cinema has long championed the masala potboiler, producing formula films which have action, romance, comedy, emotion—or as Dharmendra says during his drunk act in the film, the story had emotion, drama and tragedy. Everything was there in spades: the train sequence where Jai and Veeru escape, the simmering glances exchanged between Jai and Thakur’s widowed daughter-in-law, Radha (Jaya Bhaduri), the scene where Jai presents Veeru’s matrimonial proposal, and the sequence where Jai dies in Veeru’s arms. It also, quite cleverly, has Bachchan’s sarcastic commentary. At one point, he mutters “saala nautanki”, while at another, he calls his friend James Bond’s grandson. It assimilates potential criticism from the audience, who may be too cool for the melodrama.
It is truly a modern film, in its intent and its execution. Both Jai and Veeru are Nowhere Men, like the No Name cowboys who roll into town in Westerns with nothing but a cigarette on their lips and a pistol in their pockets. Here the two denim clad heroes have their own accessories—bidis and a bottle for Dharmendra and a harmonium and a battered coin for Bachchan. These men have no family, no friends except each other, and though they are badmash (naughty), as Sanjeev Kumar’s Thakur says, they are bahadur (courageous). Sholay’s villain is morally reprehensible, with no explanation or back story for his evil nature. Its village, Ramgarh, recreated in the rocky landscape of Ramanagaram, Karnataka, is a potential haven where Jai and Veeru want to retire, buy land, and live off it. That they don’t, and that Veeru survives to take the train back to the city, is the reality of every contemporary migrant.
The idea of a collective, a community or a country revolting against injustice may well have been a coded message by Salim-Javed at the height of emergency
Ramesh Sippy’s treatment of women has always been modern, from the get-go. In his very first film as a director, Andaz, in 1971, he cast Shammi Kapoor as a single, widowed father, and Hema Malini as a single mom with a child born out of wedlock. In Sholay, Sanjeev Kumar’s Thakur discusses his widowed daughter-in-law’s possible marriage to Jai with her father, played by Iftekhar. Hema Malini’s Basanti, the ever-talkative tonga driver, is the equivalent of the city car driver, giving women both mobility and economic independence. There are other markers of modernity throughout the film: the idea of a secular village, of violence being the only solution against oppression, and of honour. “Izzat ki maut zillat ki zindagi se achhi hai (An honourable death is better than a life of dishonour),” says a character. The idea of a collective, a community or a country revolting against injustice may well have been a coded message by Salim-Javed at the height of Emergency.
There is also the fun use of English, with the extended and much quoted sequence of Dharmendra standing atop the water tank, and threatening to die by suicide. “Yeh suicide kya hota hai,” asks a villager who is in the crowd watching the spectacle. “Jab angrez log marte hai to usse suicide kehte hain (When English speakers die, they call it suicide),” explains another villager. And when Dharmendra says goodbye, a similar dialogue follows: “Yeh goodbye kya hota hai,” asks the same villager. “Jab angrez log jate hai to woh goodbye kehte hai (When English speakers leave, they say goodbye to each other).” explains his friend. “Magar yeh angrez log jaate kahan hai? (But where do these English speakers go?),” says his curious friend in frustration.
All this humour, and yes, even the malevolence, continues to echo half a century later, whether in advertisements, or movie dialogues, general knowledge quizzes, or even movie titles. Exquisitely written by Salim-Javed who also played a key role in getting Amitabh Bachchan cast, even the room where they came up with the lines is still sacrosanct, proudly pointed out to by Ramesh’s son Rohan, who has his office there now.
SHOLAY’S RESTORATION BY the Film Heritage Foundation has been heroic. Not a single 70mm print survives. The original camera negatives were in a bad shape. Some elements, including the original 35 mm camera and sound negatives of the film, were in a warehouse in Mumbai, which meant the restoration had to be done using interpositives. For Dungarpar, who was six years old, and all set to watch Sholay with his parents in Bhopal, when it released, but was denied at the last minute because of the violence, the opportunity to preserve the film was a gift of a lifetime.
Work began in earnest in 2022, when Ramesh’s nephew Shehzad Sippy of Sippy Films initiated discussions with the Film Heritage Foundation about the film elements housed in the warehouse. Ramesh visited the archival office to witness this extraordinary find, visibly moved by the survival of these original components. Additional elements of the film were stored at Iron Mountain in the UK, a global leader in asset management for over 70 years. With assistance from the British Film Institute, the Film Heritage Foundation was granted access to these materials. Subsequently, the reels from both London and Mumbai were transported to L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna to commence the intricate restoration process.
The primary challenge lay in the condition of the original camera negative, which had deteriorated and was thus unsuitable for the restoration. Consequently, the restoration predominantly utilised the interpositives located in London and Mumbai. Fortuitously, the colour reversal intermediate discovered in London contained the original ending and two previously deleted scenes. The Film Heritage Foundation had also successfully acquired the original Arri 2C camera instrumental in the filming of Sholay. Given the absence of 70mm prints, the Film Heritage Foundation consulted with veteran cinematographer Kamalakar Rao, who had collaborated on Sholay with the film’s cinematographer, Dwarka Divecha.
Rao recounted Divecha’s technique of employing a ground glass in front of the camera lens, upon which Rao made markings to delineate the margins of the 70mm frame. Adding to the Film Heritage Foundation’s good fortune, the original magnetic sound elements were located at the Sippy Films office. The sound restoration was meticulously conducted utilising both the original sound negative and these magnetic elements. The final restored version is a culmination of efforts based on two interpositives and two-colour reversal intermediates. Sholay pioneered technical advancements in Indian cinema as the nation’s first 70mm film and the first Hindi film to feature stereophonic sound.
Sholay borrowed its essence from Western cinema. Javed Akhtar has said that John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven (1960) was the core inspiration. The writers were also influenced by Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) and Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954). There was also the ground reality portrayed in Tarun Kumar Bhaduri’s book Abhishapta Chambal, though credit was not given to Bhaduri (Jaya Bachchan’s father, and for many years the Bhopal correspondent for The Statesman). Gabbar Singh was based on a real-life dacoit called Gabra whom Salim Khan had heard about.
Perhaps author Balaji Vittal has the last word when it comes to why Sholay is such a thrill, “When someone takes a big swing, he is conveying the impression that he has faith in what he is doing. Sholay cost `2.5 crore and GP Sippy kept bankrolling Ramesh Sippy whether it was getting the colour processing done in London or getting the fight director from abroad. They were making the first of its kind. It’s like when Raj Kapoor shot the Awaara song medley in the newly constructed RK Studios. It was a big investment, but that chest thumping confidence rubs off on others.” So when Salim and Javed placed an announcement in the trade papers, promising that their pet project would make over `1 crore per territory, everyone laughed. “Don’t you mean one crore in the entire country,” they asked. Its box office collection is `15 crore, while its all-time worldwide footfalls is 25 crore.
When it is released commercially in India, by the end of the year, with the original ending and two deleted scenes, Sholay is bound to renew its status as a cultural touchstone that binds the country. If Gabbar were now to ask, “Kitne aadmi the?” The answer for the last 50 years and the next 50 years is likely to be, “Bahut saare, Sardar”.
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