Raj Khosla@100: Asha Parekh remembers director who helped her break 'glam girl' image with 'Do Badan'
At a retrospective event to mark Khosla's 100th birth anniversary, Parekh said the filmmaker's decision to cast her in the 1966 drama came as a surprise to her as it went against the industry's perception of her.
"Everyone in the industry thought I was just a glam girl, a dancing girl and that I am not a good actress. I do not know what Raj ji had in mind when he came to me and offered me 'Do Badan'. The critics wrote good things about me and my work in the film. It gave me confidence to do more such films," Parekh said at a panel discussion.
"Do Badan" tells the story of two lovers Asha , a wealthy young woman, and Vikas , an orphan whose romance takes a tragic turn due to a series of unforeseen events. The film, which became a box-office hit on its release, also featured Simi Garewal and Pran in pivotal roles.
The Dadasaheb Phalke award winner revealed that initially, her contemporary, Rakhee, was supposed to star in the film.
"I remember, Raj ji called me and said, 'I want to talk to you'. I said, 'okay'. He came home and narrated the story. After the narration, I told him to promise me to make the film as it is. It was a beautifully-written film. It was poetic. I remember, women would cry watching the film," Parekh said.
The actor also shared that she had suggested a different climax to Khosla for "Do Badan", one where only her character would die. However, after further discussions, Kumar convinced the director to go with a more tragic ending in which both lovers meet their fate.
"He would say what he wanted but leave the artists to emote the way they want," Parekh said about their collaborative process. After "Do Badan", the two also collaborated in "Chirag" , "Mera Gaon Mera Desh" and "Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki" .
Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt was also part of the panel discussion along with Amborish Roychoudhury, the author of "Raj Khosla: The Authorised Biography", and Khosla's daughter, Anita.
Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, director of the Film Heritage Foundation , moderated the panel discussion.
Khosla gave Hindi cinema some of its most memorable songs like "Lag Jaa Gale", "Mera Saaya", "Jhumka Gira Re", "Kahin Pe Nigaahen Kahin Pe Nishaana", "Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan", "Nazar Lagi Raja Tore Bangle Par", "Hai Apna Dil To Awara" and many more.
Parekh said she loved the way Khosla shot the song sequences in his movies.
"When you work in four films, the whole unit becomes like a family.... Raj ji came from the Guru Dutt school, there was a little bit of Guru Dutt ji that he had while doing ," she said.
The daylong retrospective, titled "Raj Khosla 100 Bambai Ka Babu", was curated by the FHF at the Regal Cinema in south Mumbai.
As part of the celebrations, three of Khosla's acclaimed films "CID" , "Bambai Ka Babu" and "Mera Gaon Mera Desh" were screened.
The first two films have been restored in 4K resolution by the National Film Development Corporation and National Film Archive of India under the National Film Heritage Mission, an initiative of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Parekh said re-watching "Mera Gaon Mera Desh" brought back fresh memories.
"It did bring back fresh memories. I had the most fun working with him. I wish I could see the entire film, but I had to leave," the veteran actor told PTI.
"It was a film that was different from the films I was doing. It had beautiful songs. Laxmi Chayya had a better role than I, but despite that, I stood my ground," she added.
Earlier in the day, actor Raima Sen introduced "Bambai Ka Babu", which featured her late grandmother, Suchitra Sen, opposite Dev Anand.
Sen said she is glad that these classic films are being reintroduced and thanked the FHF for taking the initiative to commemorate Khosla's work.
"I am excited to introduce this film, which is my favourite film. For her , to take up this subject was a very bold move because it was not conventional and she was a star.
"So to do an unusual film story of a brother and a sister, who till the end do not know that they are brother and sister, and the romance between the two, I think the film was way ahead of its time," Sen said.
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Mint
a day ago
- Mint
Artist Madhvi Parekh presents fantastical worlds in a new solo show
At DAG, Delhi, an exhibition of paintings offers insight into artist Madhvi Parekh's prowess as a storyteller. The solo presentation, Madhvi Parekh: Remembered Tales, features a set of newly completed works by the 83-year-old artist. Canvases often feature narratives nestled within one another. In Goddess of My Village, an acrylic on canvas (2023), two heads appear to be connected by a tapering tubular form. This slender conduit, of sorts, contains smaller figures—plants, fish, fantastical organisms—creating a world within a world. You could assume that the two connected figures have subsumed these smaller creatures, or that their overall persona is the sum of all these little beings. The painting also features deities within temples, anthropomorphic creatures with human heads and piscine bodies, totemlike structures, and more. In another part of the gallery, another set of stories unfurls within Pond in my Village (2024). The scene seems to be set in some surrealistic realm, where the city and the village, the real and the dreamlike come together. Parekh populates her worlds with patterns, dots, dashes, embroidery-like textures, hybrid beings, and leaves their interpretation to the viewer. I meet Parekh at her home in Delhi's Chittaranjan Park in between spells of rain. The self-taught artist is a reluctant conversationalist, but her paintings speak a great deal on her behalf. In her creations, time frames collapse into one another, the past exists with the present. She brings scenes from the city and her memories of growing up in the village of Sanjaya, Gujarat, together in a single canvas with ease. The bird or pakshi is a recurring motif. It stands as a symbol of a free-spirited being, who travels between memories and geographies. To me, it represents Parekh herself, who takes the viewer by the hand on this time travel. The wide-eyed figures, which have become so emblematic of her practice, continue to make their presence felt in works such as Flower Vase in My Family (2024) and the triptych Travelling Circus in My Village, as representations of curious seekers. Also read: Planner: A lot of art with a side of theatre, 5 events to enjoy a cultural weekend Also on display at the exhibition are her sketchbooks, featuring drawings spanning 1978 to 2018, from DAG's archive, which show the evolution of the artist—from using textured backgrounds in the 1970s to the way she has built on everyday observations in her practice over time. 'For me, drawing is the foundation of everything. It offers a sense of freedom. Even now, while waiting at airports, I carry a book in which I keep sketching," she says. Accompanying the exhibition is a publication featuring scholarly pieces on Parekh's practice by Rebecca Brown of John Hopkins University and critic-writer Meera Menezes. Parekh often harks to the past in her conversations. 'Puraane dino ki baatein karne mein bohot accha lagta hai (It feels great to reminisce about the olden days)," she laughs. She lives with memories of ponds, mustard fields, temples, wedding processions, circus performers and behrupiyas (impersonator), who would visit her village during festivals. Parekh was raised with Gandhian philosophy propagated by her father, who was an educator. 'I grew up with three sisters and two brothers, and my father never discriminated between us. He was a selfmade man, who taught us the value of hard work and the importance of making full use of time," she reminisces. She got married to artist Manu Parekh at the age of 15 and moved to Mumbai, where they stayed in a small fifth floor apartment. There, everyday urban struggles took over, from water troubles to daily chores. Even then, art made inroads into her life. The couple would visit exhibitions at Jehangir Art Gallery and have elaborate discussions. She was in her 20s and pregnant with her oldest daughter, Manisha, when she decided to pursue art herself. 'I wanted to give my child a good sanskar (culture). So, I decided to take up something creative," she says. Also read: Morii Design: How a Gandhinagar-based studio is sewing up a stitch library Her husband, who had studied at Sir JJ School of Art, introduced her to Paul Klee's Pedagogical Sketchbook, and Parekh started experimenting with geometrical forms. She formed her own connections with memories of paintings on walls in her village during weddings and festivals and created her own language of dots and lines. The resulting vocabulary was so unique that even now experts find it hard to categorise it as a specific genre or style. Some find elements of primitivism while others see the folk imprint. 'At most, it can be said that her work parallels folk art, even though it is not like any known folk form in India or elsewhere, and has the rawness and energy associated with modernism," states the gallery note. It is this distinctive style that has seen Parekh in the international spotlight in recent years. In 2022, her paintings were chosen by Christian Dior as a backdrop to its haute couture show in Paris. This was followed by a show for Manu and Madhvi Parekh at the Venice Biennale (2024). Parekh's works are now part of major collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Fellow artist and husband, Manu, puts it best: 'She is a modern painter with a rural sensibility. She is not constrained by the idiom of folk art. And that gives her immense scope to evolve and grow." He finds immense depth in the practices of self-taught artists like Parekh and Bhupen Khakhar. 'I find the term 'self-taught' to be a misnomer. They too have learnt from someone and something. Instead of one teacher, they have 10 gurus. Their mind and intellect is their master too," he says. For Parekh, layers of experience have kept building on one another, enriching her visual syntax. The childhood memories of intricate and vibrant paintings on the dome of the Swaminarayan temple in her village, the narrations of Ramayan and Mahabharat during festivals and bhavai performances were joined by visits to international museums and institutions such as the Miro Foundation, Barcelona, with her husband. The paintings of Henri Matisse left a huge impression on her. A visit to the Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem a few years ago shook her to the core. 'Mann mein dukh lag raha tha (the heart was heavy). That's when I saw the figure of Jesus outside with his composed visage, and I started exploring the figure of Christ in my paintings," she says. Parekh imbibed learnings from fellow artists such as Nalini Malani, who taught her the reverse glass technique. The initial Christ series (2006) were made in this style. Later Parekh started working more with acrylics and canvas. Together with Malani, Arpita Singh and Nilima Sheikh, she also participated in a travelling exhibition called Through the Looking Glass in 1998. Also read: Three Indian galleries expand their presence in London with a unique showcase Textile has also played a huge role in her practice, with influence of kantha, kalamkari and sujani embroideries evident in her work. 'Back in our village, we all learnt embroidery and how to make the rangoli. During my travels, I saw different styles in different parts of the country. The colour scheme and patterns of the rangoli have always held a huge attraction for me," she elaborates. While Manu was posted in Kolkata as part of his work with the Weavers' Service Centre, Parekh was a keen participant in Kali and Durga pujas. The figure of the Goddess and the texture of kantha made its appearance in her work at the time. Meera Menezes, in her essay titled Madhvi Parekh's Fabular Worlds in the accompanying publication, writes about that time period. 'Her painting Ganesha in Boat was sparked by a stray remark—a person recounted to her that they made a Durga in a boat, leading Madhvi to experiment and place the elephant god in a boat. Like Durga, Ganesha too is a popular god, and Madhvi recalls his importance in rituals she experienced while growing up in Gujarat." More than anything else, it is the sense of play in her works that appeals to viewers and critics alike. 'There is always a reel going on in my mind. There used to be a pond in my village. My mother used to prohibit us from going there. In my realm of fantasy, I go there often. Later, when my eldest daughter was born, and I had to go to the Madras Art Camp, I used to wish for wings so that I could go home, feed her and then come back to paint. Such elements make their way from the mind to the canvas," she says. At DAG, New Delhi, till 23 August.
Scroll.in
6 days ago
- Scroll.in
Book versus film: How Alfred Hitchcock transported the spine-chilling ‘Psycho' to the screen
'Norman Bates heard the noise and a shock went through him.' Thus begins Robert Bloch's best-known novel Psycho, which inspired the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho. Published in 1959, the book about a serial killer with a mother fixation was quickly snapped up for a screen adaptation that came out in 1960. Hitchcock's money-spinning version inspired three sequels, a remake and a contemporary series. Bloch was a prolific writer in the genres of crime, science fiction and fantasy ('Things were very quiet in ladies' underwear that morning' is the opening line of his novella The Miracle of Ronald Weems). Bloch churned out more Psycho books too, which had nothing to do with the film sequels. While the movie diverges from the book, the two Psychos are united in their concentrated impact. Hitchcock's genius lies in locating the correct tone and visuals to match Bloch's chilling prose. Hitchcock's Psycho will be screened on July 24 at Mumbai's Regal cinema by the Film Heritage Foundation, as part of its annual restoration workshop. The foundation previously showed the suspense maestro's North By Northwest, and will screen Rear Window (on July 31) and Vertigo (on August 7). View this post on Instagram A post shared by Film Heritage Foundation (@filmheritagefoundation) A landmark of the horror genre, Psycho remains the subject of numerous dissections and debates. The black-and-white movie's gruesome centrepiece is a roughly 45-second sequence in which a woman is knifed to death while taking a shower. The stabbing was one of the most explicit portrayals of violence in cinema at the time. In an interview in 1990, Bloch recalled telling the director, 'Mr Hitchcock, I think this is either going to be your greatest success, or your biggest bomb.' Bloch dreams up a worse fate for the showering woman, Mary Crane. Mary spots a 'crazy old woman' peering at her through the curtain. 'Mary started to scream, and then the curtains parted further and a hand appeared, holding a butcher's knife,' Bloch writes. 'It was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream. And her head.' It was the 'suddenness of the murder in the shower, coming, as it were, out of the blue', that intrigued Hitchcock, he told filmmaker Francois Truffaut for the conversation book Hitchcock/Truffaut. Psycho supplied Hitchcock the opportunity to get audiences 'aroused by pure film', he said. Bloch's crisp writing and vivid imagery gave Hitchcock and screenwriter Joseph Stefano ample cues to create graphic, abrupt scenes. Bloch based Norman Bates on Ed Gein, the American serial killer who in the 1950s made souvenirs from the body parts of his victims. Norman's reading list includes a book about the Incas, who have fashioned drums out of human skin – a foreshadowing of Norman's subsequent actions as well as a link to Ed Gein. In an essay The Shambles of Ed Gein from 1962, Bloch wrote, 'The real chamber of horrors is the gray, twisted, pulsating, blood-flecked interior of the human mind.' In Bloch's novel, readers meet his deranged creation in the first chapter itself. Norman is unnerved by a sound that turns out to be that of rain, not of 'someone tapping on the window pane'. Norman has lived his entire life in the house adjoining the Bates Motel. The only other occupant, who looms large over Norman's fragile mind, is his beloved and hated mother Norma. Bloch writes: 'Here everything was orderly and ordained: it was only there, outside, that the changes took place. And most of the changes held a potential threat.' Norma disapproves of 40-year-old Norman's stay-at-home behaviour, his sexual impotence, his submissiveness. 'Mothers sometimes are overly possessive, but not all children allow themselves to be possessed,' Bloch observes. Mary Crane wanders into Norman's isolated world by accident. She is on the run after having stolen money from her employer in order to help her boyfriend Sam Loomis pay off a debt. Heavy rain forces Mary to stay the night at Bates Motel, where Norman, his collection of stuffed animals – he is a taxidermist by hobby – and Mother await her. After Mary's disappearance, the detective Arbogast, Sam and Mary's sister Lila arrive at Bates Motel. The book's final chapters are replicated in the film adaptation. The movie finds innovative ways to transport Bloch's observations to the screen. A line that compares Norman's house to a jail inspires Saul Bass's opening titles, in which the names resemble distorted bars in a prison cell. Hitchcock made some key changes to the book. Mary Crane is now Marion Crane. Norman doesn't have a plump face, thinning sandy hair or rimless glasses. He is tall and slim, with a full head of hair, piercing black eyes and a boyish appearance. The film begins with Marion, rather than Norman. The camera hovers over a city and then moves downward and through the window of the room where Marion (Janet Leigh) is in bed with Sam (John Gavin). Voyeurism, the act of seeing what is meant to be shielded from the gaze, will be echoed later in the film, culminating in the shower. '…the public always likes to be one jump ahead of the story; they like to feel that they know what's coming next,' Hitchcock told Truffaut. 'So you deliberately play upon this fact to control their thoughts. The more we go into the details of the girl's story, the more the audience becomes absorbed in her flight.' The movie withholds the introduction to Norman – a necessary device for creating suspense. The movie's Norman is a cipher, without any indication of his proclivities. In the book, Norman has an outburst when Mary suggests that he should institutionalise his ailing mother. In the film, Norman doesn't visibly react to Marion's remark. Rather, his mental state is revealed through camera angles and subtle editing. Cinematographer John L Russell moves around and closer to Norman and the stuffed birds in the background during his conversation with Marion. The film's iconic bit of dialogue 'We all go a little mad sometimes' is a reworking of Bloch's line 'I think perhaps all us go a little crazy at times.' Norman's poignant statement about his loneliness is an invention of the film: 'We scratch and claw but only at the air and each other. And for all of it we never budge an inch.' Hitchcock's mastery is most evident in the opening section, the build-up to Marion's killing and the shower sequence. While the woman's beheading is excised for the movie, Hitchcock conjures up an equally terrible end for the character. Hitchcock told Truffaut that he deliberately cast Janet Leigh as Marion. By killing a well-known actor so early into the narrative, Hitchcock was 'directing the viewers', he added, 'playing them, like an organ'. Marion's murder is sliced into numerous shots that last mere seconds and match the frenzied stabs on her naked body. Bernard Hermann's strings-heavy background score mimics the sound of shrieking. A match cut links Marion's eye to the drain into which her blood is flowing. The shoot took a week, required 72 camera set-ups and involved 52 editing cuts. Marli Renfro played Leigh's body double. Renfro was among the actors, filmmakers and critics interviewed by Alexandre O Philippe for his insightful documentary 78/52 (2017). Director Karyn Kusama notes in 78/52 that Psycho was 'the first modern, pure expression of the female body under assault'. Hermann's iconic tune – which was partially lifted by composer Sandeep Chowta for a scene in Ram Gopal Varma's Satya (1988) – could not be heard in cinemas because of the audience's screams, Peter Bogdanovich recalls in 78/52. Play The stabbing montage eclipses Hitchcock's other feats in the movie. The truth about Norma and Norman comes off better in the novel. Despite peaking a bit too soon, the film distils the twisted spirit of Bloch's novel, while also giving a face to Norman Bates that is impossible to forget. Anthony Perkins, the father of horror filmmaker Osgood Perkins, brilliantly played Norman in Psycho and its sequels, his interpretation of the maniac overshadowing his other roles. Film scholars have pointed to Psycho 's predecessors, among them Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955). Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, which was released two months before Psycho in 1960, is considered a worthier and weightier exploration of deviance. Yet, Psycho 's contribution to the serial killer genre is vast and enduring. In 1998, Gus Van Sant directed a shot-by-shot remake in colour. His Psycho starred Vince Vaughn as Norman, Anne Heche as Marion and Julianne Moore as Lila. The film is a curio, adding nothing to the original production. The continuing fascination with Norman's house of horrors also inspired the long-running television series Bates Motel (2013-2017). The prequel takes place in the present and explores Norman's formative years. Freddie Highmore plays a young Norman, while Vera Farmiga is Norma. The show is aimed at completists who want to know every inch of the twinned Norman-Norma. But Bloch's novel and Hitchcock's adaptation are adequate as starter and main course. Each is complete in itself, best consumed in one terrified gulp.
News18
17-07-2025
- News18
50 Years Of Sholay: Restored And Timeless
The restored Sholay will keep film scholars busy for a while; but I hope it claims a small place in the consciousness of an audience born many years after it set screens on fire On Friday, 27 June, the fully restored uncut version of Ramesh Sippy's Sholay had its world premiere at Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, Italy. 'It was a magnificent evening in Bologna yesterday to watch the restored Sholay play out for the first time on a giant screen in the Piazza Maggiore in front of an audience that filled the seats, the steps around the square and even the floor as they watched one of India's most iconic films come back to life 50 years after it was released," Mumbai-based Film Heritage Foundation, which has painstakingly restored the classic, posted on Facebook. This version includes the film's original ending—changed due to objection from the censors—and deleted scenes. This work by the foundation could be the most important such project in India till date, given the near-mythical status that Sholay enjoys in our cinema. Sholay, billed as 'the greatest story ever told", was released on 15 August 1975. It went on to earn a still-standing record of 60 golden jubilees (50-week runs) across India, and was the first film to celebrate a silver jubilee at over 100 theatres. It was screened continuously at Bombay's 1,500-seat Minerva theatre for over five years. As a pre-teen schoolboy in Bombay, I watched it on Sunday, 18 August. Some 25 years later—I had watched Sholay many times more by then—quite by chance, the uncut version came to me, the one that Ramesh Sippy had originally submitted to the Censor Board. A colleague had bought a bootlegged CD of the film in Kuala Lumpur and watched it over the weekend. On Monday, a very puzzled man walked into my cabin. 'Sir," he asked, 'did Thakur Baldev Singh kill Gabbar Singh?" 'No," I said. 'He's about to, when the police arrive and stop him." 'But here he does!" my colleague said, producing his CD. I immediately knew that he had inadvertently bought a rare gem. It was fairly well-known among fans that Sippy and screenwriters Salim-Javed had originally killed off Gabbar, but the censors had insisted on getting the climax reworked. I borrowed the CD and watched it that night. The uncensored version is of course longer than the current one available to the public, but two scenes stand out. Young Ahmed, played by Sachin Pilgaonkar, is captured by Gabbar's men and brought to his den, where he is resting. Chunks of meat on a skewer are being roasted on a fire behind him. The bandits tell Gabbar: 'This boy is from Ramgarh. He was going to the station and we found him on the way." Gabbar thinks for a few seconds, watching a fly crawling down his forearm, then smiles and slaps it dead. The next sequence is Ahmed's horse, carrying his corpse, walking into Ramgarh. This is what see in the current censor-certified version. In the uncensored film, after he kills the fly, Gabbar shouts: 'Have you heard, all of you? The people of Ramgarh have started running away from the village now!" Ahmed asks Gabbar to let him go. The bandit replies: 'Tum jaante ho main kaun hoon? Hum Ramgarh ke baap hain, baap ('Do you know who I am? I am Ramgarh's father)." He then asks Ahmed to rub his nose on the ground at his feet. When Ahmed does not move, an enraged Gabbar yells at him to come forward. The young man tries to attack him and the bandit brings him down with one blow. His men are about to shoot Ahmed, but Gabbar stops them. 'You think a man feels any pain when a bullet kills him?" he says. 'Isko toh main tadpa tadpa ke maarunga, bahut tadpa tadpa ke maarunga (I'm going to give him a painful death, a very painful death)." He picks up a sharp iron rod from the fire, yanks Ahmed's head up by his hair and holds the rod next to his eye. We then see Ahmed's horse carrying his master's corpse home. In the current Sholay, in the climactic fight sequence between Thakur and Gabbar, a bloodied and exhausted Gabbar is lying on the ground and Thakur is about to kill him by stamping his face with his hob-nailed sandals when the police arrive and dissuade him. In the uncut version, the bloodied and exhausted Gabbar is still staggering around. Thakur is about to strike him again when he notices that right behind Gabbar is a sharp iron rod protruding from one of the two stone pillars which the bandit had used to string him up to hack off his arms. Thakur leaps, hammering Gabbar on his chest. Gabbar falls on the rod, gets skewered and dies. Veeru then drapes Thakur's shawl round his shoulders and holds him tight. Thakur rests his head on Veeru's shoulder and weeps uncontrollably. Over the years, Ramesh Sippy has said in several interviews that he did not agree with the cuts that the censors demanded, but had to comply because this was during the Emergency—a time of tough censorship. Even after the censored Sholay was released, there was a furore in the media about its 'extreme violence and cruelty"—that the film should have been certified Adults Only. By today's standards, the violence in Sholay is rather mild. And there is remarkably little blood that we see on the screen—only a few bullet wounds. Yet, in my opinion, Sholay is one of the few Indian films that the censors actually improved a bit, though absolutely accidentally. Film Heritage Foundation has recovered a priceless historic artefact of Indian cinema, but is the uncut version better than the one we are familiar with? My answer is no. The cruelty in Sholay lies in the acts that Gabbar commits, but the gory violence directly associated with them is off-screen. We do not see Thakur's arms being chopped off or his grandchild being shot by Gabbar. When Gabbar swats a fly dead, we know that the innocent Ahmed will be killed and the effect is far more chilling than a graphic description of how he is killed. The latter—with its iron skewer—is merely stomach-churning. The censors gave the scene a haunting—and aesthetic—subtlety by leaving the details of Ahmed's horrific end to the viewer's imagination. But the original ending with Gabbar dying exactly where he had chopped off Thakur's arms is much more emotionally satisfying than the current one. It is poetic justice, neatly closing the loop between the atrocities that Thakur suffered and the punishment that Gabbar deserved. I will certainly enjoy a Sholay with this sequence replacing the current one. But the dacoits chasing Basanti's horse-carriage for a full five minutes, which is a very long time in a movie? I can live without that. Or more of Soorma Bhopali and the jailor? We do not need that. Sippy himself pared Sholay down a few times. The film I watched in its 100-th week re-release was shorter, with a few sequences dropped or shortened from the 15 August 1975 one. The current DVD and streaming platform versions are even shorter. In 2007, I had the dire misfortune of watching Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, Varma's unauthorised remake of Sholay. The next day I wrote a column in the newspaper I was working for then that it was an act of barbarism—Varma had no clue what made Sholay… Sholay. Salim Khan, co-writer of Sholay, read the piece and took the trouble of finding my phone number, and called me. The conversation lasted more than an hour. I asked him about the various Hollywood films that he and Javed Akhtar had 'lifted" ideas and entire sequences from—after all, the basic Sholay storyline itself is redux The Magnificent Seven, a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Some of these sources are well-documented—Once Upon A Time In The West (the train robbery sequence and Gabbar killing Thakur's grandchild), The Professionals (the final chase as Veeru and Jai are escaping Gabbar's den with Basanti), Garden of Evil (the card draws inspired Jai's coin-flipping tricks that underpin the entire narrative)—and so on. I told him that I thought that every copied sequence was done far better in Sholay than the originals. Then I asked him the question that he must have faced a thousand times. 'Who was the real writer in Salim-Javed?" I asked. 'That's a wrong question," he replied. 'The man who sits outside a post office, a pen stuck behind his ear, waiting to fill up money order forms for poor illiterate people—he too writes (Woh bhi toh likhta hai). The correct question is 'Sochta kaun hai (Who is the thinker)?" I did not press that point. He revealed that Sippy was upset that some upstart had remade his epic, but he had told Sippy that Varma's misbegotten attempt would only add to Sholay's glory and make its status in the Indian film pantheon even firmer. Varma's film, I assume, would have been withdrawn by the theatres within a week. top videos View all I intend to watch the uncut Sholay when it is released in theatres in India. Of course Gen Z-ers may find it boring—it is almost three and a half hours long—and even insipid—computing power has made action sequences incredibly more awesome. Some may find it misogynistic. But like all great films, Sholay's fundamental themes remain universal and timeless—justice, loyalty and sacrifice. The restored Sholay will of course keep film scholars busy for a while; but I hope that it also claims a small place in the consciousness of an audience born many years after the film set screens all across India on fire. The reviewer is former managing editor of Outlook, former editor of The Financial Express, and founding editor of Outlook Money, Open, and Swarajya magazines. He has authored several books. He tweets @sandipanthedeb. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication. tags : Sholay view comments Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: July 01, 2025, 14:00 IST News opinion Opinion | 50 Years Of Sholay: Restored And Timeless Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
