Arre O Sambha

When it hit theatres in 1975, it ran for five consecutive years in Mumbai. India's first curry Western, Sholay, was released at a time In...

When it hit theatres in 1975, it ran for five consecutive years in Mumbai. India8217;s first curry Western, Sholay, was released at a time India was coming to grips with spiralling corruption, administrative confusion and political volatility. Indira Gandhi had convinced the nation that an Emergency was the only way out for India to move forward. Talk less, work more, said the legends on DTC buses.

Hum do hamare do, said promos on State-controlled television. On screen, when Veeru and Jaidev clattered about in their scooter with a baby seat, and went into Ramgarh to rid it of Gabbar Singh, they redefined the idiom of modern Indian cinema. And by extension, the notion of Indian nationhood.

Here were two city-bred jailbirds, with no obvious family to speak of, seeking to eliminate a bloodthirsty dacoit. But for a price, not for the milk of human kindness. With cinematography which tracked barren expanses and rocky terrains in the manner of John Wayne westerns, and music lifted from Sergio Leone, the film doffed its hat to many movies: Wild Bunch in 1969 and The Magnificent Seven in 1962.

Here was a movie maker, only 28 when he made Sholay, making an unabashed ode to violence choreographing fight scenes with the loving care that had hitherto been lavished only on group dances. A midnight8217;s child, Ramesh Sippy had a thoroughly modernist outlook on India8217;s vast rural hinterland, even if he had little contact with it. It was the breeding ground for all sorts of weak-kneed exploitation and it took two city slickers, motivated by a former police officer who was also a feudal landlord, to liberate the villagers from their drudgery. Unlike in the Indian cinematic tradition, violence here was completely irrational. Gabbar Singh with his maniacal laugh and ethnic dialogue became the archetype of evil, even if the heroes were not such straight out of Ramayana and Mahabharata.

The film was significant because of the path it showed others: the folksy Mehbooba Mehbooba setting the trend for countless Choli ki peecheys and Chhaiya chhaiyas in the Nineties; the heroes with shades of gray; the independent-spirited heroine, Basanti, the tangewali, setting off the don8217;t mind8217; chatterboxes of end-of-the-millennium movies; and the tobacco-chewing, venom-spewing villain, becoming the receptacle for the urban angst which had no outlet. The film was significant in the cottage industry it kicked off: soundtracks of Gabbar Singh8217;s dialogues did the rounds, Dharmendra8217;s denim jacket became a fashion statement, the shawl Sanjeev Kumar draped on his armless torso was elevated into an art by the political elite a decade later, and by 1995, Seema Biswas could speak in Bundelkhandi as Phoolan Devi and be applauded by metropolitan India. Now that the original backers of Sholay have realised they can make it a Star Wars franchise, perhaps we need to be wary. When merchandising takes over frommovie-making, even masala westerns fall flat. The sequel is planned, the book is in the works and an auction will get off the ground in September 2000. All we wait for is the T-shirt, even as the muscular core of the film is forgotten.