Skip to main content

Sholay - The Greatest Story Ever Told

By Jaideep Sen 



The other day I saw an interview of Karan Johar where he mentioned how upset he gets when he meets film related people who say they’ve not seen Sholay. Seeing the respect, he gave Sholay made my love and respect for Karan Johar go many notches higher because for you to be in Love with Indian Cinema, you have to be in love with Sholay

I see some part of Sholay almost every day. In fact even while punching the keys of my laptop while writing this piece, the epic is playing in front as an inspiration. The reason Sholay stands on the Number 1 block of the victory stand of Indian Cinema since 15th August, 1975 and is unshakeable even 47 years after its release and will always be immovable is because it’s the only perfect amalgam of writing and form, that too in every department of filmmaking. 


We need to be grateful to the writing of Salim Saab, Javed Saab, the big heartedness of G.P Sippy Saab and the craftmanship of Ramesh Sippy Ji for giving us what Shekhar Kapur has termed as the most defining film of Indian Cinema. 

Even today we see traces of Sholay in modern day gigantic blockbusters like Bahubali where “Katappa ne Bahubali ko kyon maara” at the end of part one feels like an equivalent to why did Thakur not pick up the gun close to the interval point. 

Bheem and Ram of RRR are the modern day Veeru and Jai which Javed Saab has himself expressed at the RRR Success Party and the audience, including me, is referring to Sanjay Dutt as Adheera in KGF 2 as a modern day Gabbar. 


In fact, immediately after seeing RRR on the first day of its release I called its Story Writer V. Vijayendra Prasad Ji to tell him that I felt the film was a homage to Sholay. In fact, while seeing RRR a second time, I realized how a single bullet connects it to Sholay because here Ajay Devgn’s character and, in Sholay, Jai use that one last bullet to sacrifice their lives while blowing up the opposition.

These are the permanent footsteps of eternal brilliance left on the sands of time by Sholay for which we need to be in eternal reverence and gratitude to Salim Saab, Javed Saab, G.P Sippy Saab, Ramesh Ji and Team Sholay for blessing us with The Greatest Story Ever Told.

 Jaideep Sen is a filmmaker and a connoisseur of the art of storytelling. 

  

Read his earlier posts in the Salaam Salim Saab Series: 


#1 Salaam, Salim Saab 

 #2 Silence that Speaks 

#3 The Invaluable Value of the Pen

 #4 The Guru of Screenwriting

 #5 The Forever Burning Flame of Sholay

 #6 The Strength of Characterisation 

 #7 Bond of Brotherhood

 #8 The Sangam of a Genius and his Admirer 

 #9 First Link in the Zanjeer 

#10 Vijay – The Eternal Winner 

 #11 Let's Celebrate Salim Khan! 

 #12 The Memorable Women Behind the Angry Young Man

 #13 The Definition of a Love Story 

#14 Relevance Etched in Stone 

 #15 Fuelled by Rejection 

#16 Dialogue - the Spoken Word 

 #17 When Salman Khan Chose to Strip Off his Stardom

 #18 The Most Memorable Line of Indian Cinema

#19 The Doomed Characters

 #20 Mere Paas Baap Hain!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree - Review of the International Booker Prize Winner

Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree My rating: 5 of 5 stars Geetanjali Shree's original book in Hindi is called Ret Samadhi and the translated version by Daisy Rockwell is Tomb of Sand. The writer's style is lyrical and captures the essence of an Indian family completely and evocatively. In fact the amazing thing about the author's style is that it goes above and beyond the cast of characters, roping in inanimate objects (like the door, for instance), the natural elements, crows and invisible things like borders. The story lies not so much in the plotline of an old woman and her journey to find the house and man she has left behind as in highlighting the nuances of families, countries, borders, neighbourhoods, galis and mohallas , the environment, the smells, sounds and landscape, the past and present and everything in between (including a delightful treatise on the silk sari as narrated from the point of view of a crow!) that makes up the heart and soul of India. The writi

Basu Chatterji's "Balcony Class" Films

Basu Chatterji's Rajnigandha was like a breath of fresh air in the 1970s film universe of Bombay. At a time when the Angry Young Man was beginning to dominate celluloid screens, Amol Palekar was as un-hero-like as you could get. He was the Common Man who traveled in buses, did not have hero-like mannerisms and did not breathe fire and brimstone at his opponents. Basu Chatterji's Middle of the Road Cinema burst on to the scene and surprised the movie-going audience with its everyday situations and storylines that had an undercurrent of humour. Chatterji catered to an audience that he liked to call the "Balcony Class".  Anirudha Bhattacharjee, author of Basu Chatterji and Middle-of-the-Road Cinema writes an entertaining and heartwarming account of the life and work of Basu Chatterji, one of the most under-rated directors of Indian cinema. Recall of Chatterji's brand of feel-good, slice-of-life movies is perhaps highest for his Rajnigandha, Chotisi Baat, Baaton Baa

Book Review of Where Did You Go? by P.L. Jonas

  The popularity of novels like Gone Girl and T he Girl on the Train with an intriguing premise, unreliable narrators and plot twists, has put the spotlight on psychological suspense stories. Such stories have a thriller like urgency about them and yet are rooted in familiar, real life situations. A well crafted, edgy psychological suspense can keep the reader hooked till the very last page.  The novella Where Did You Go ? by debut author P.L. Jonas begins with an intriguing set up. Sammy, a successful but reclusive ghostwriter, is offered a chance of a life time. The project involves completing a half-finished manuscript by her favourite writer, Margaret Mitchell, the celebrated author of  the all-time classic Gone with the Wind . Her brief is simple: she needs to follow the outline that the author has left behind and submit a draft within a tight deadline.  Her publisher, James, is confident that Sammy has what it takes to finish the novel. The chance of having her name on the book