It was a warm but amiable night in Bologna. By the time the open-air screening started at the north Italian town’s sprawling Piazza Maggiore, it was already 10 pm. Yet, at least 2,000 cinephiles, mostly Italians, had turned up. This was Sholay’s restored, uncut version — an intimidating three hours and 24 minutes in length — at the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival. “But the audience was glued, watching in pin-drop silence. When the film ended at 1.30 am, the cheering was incredible. Sholay is timeless,” says Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, whose Film Heritage Foundation has restored the film.

If the viewers’ reaction in Italy in June reaffirmed Sholay’s enduring appeal across countries and generations, an X post made by Iran’s Consulate General in Mumbai in July revealed the film’s abiding impact. “Many Iranians still associate #Bollywood with this epic,” it said, adding that a newspaper in Iran had published a full-pager commemorating the movie’s 50 years.

There’s something about Sholay. Even the biggest blockbusters eventually recede from memory. With director Ramesh Sippy’s multi-starrer, the obverse seems to be true. Sholay never left us. The movie breathes in our lives through its dialogues, which have become like proverbs, and lives in our heads through its characters. When anyone says, ‘Basanti’, we know who. In India, there’s only one Basanti. As filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt says, “Nations are not built by borders. They are held together by stories. Sholay has transcended cinema. It is one of the stories that holds India together.”

The film talks to different generations in different ways. For old-timers, Sholay is inseparable from their youth, a living memory of life as it used to be. For their progeny, and their progeny, it is a family fable they have imbibed like food, and consequently discovered on TV, internet or OTT. “Some films refuse to fade because they don’t just entertain us, they actually become us,” says Bhatt. The film is a connector.

How Gabbar got embossed in our lives
The marketing men of Polydor, a record company with the film’s rights, were critical to the tattooing of Sholay into our collective consciousness. In her award-winning book, journalist Anupama Chopra writes how Polydor executives, worried at the lukewarm sales of the music album, noticed the audience being captivated by Salim-Javed’s dialogues. Within a month, a 58-minute long-playing record was released. It turned out to be a stroke of marketing genius. A TOI article noted in 1976, “the earthy outpourings of the Sholay film track” has sold “phenomenally well”. Sholay was the first film that India heard as much as it saw.

Seventies India was an audio world. This was a time when the middle-class lined up to buy rationed sugar. For most, television was just a photograph shown to nursery kids to teach the letter, ‘T’. Even record players were restricted to a thin socio-economic band. India was primarily a radio country. Paan shop transistors would tune in to Radio Ceylon or Vividh Bharati through the day.

Against this backdrop, Sholay’s dialogues blared for months at homes, in shops, markets and fairs in Inner India’s small towns, kasbahs and mofussils. By repetition of listening, even pre-teens could recall every dialogue, just like multiplication sums. Some remembered the film by heart.

The first time this reporter saw the film at a theatre, the experience was mixed. A guy sitting in the row behind would pre-empt every dialogue. He stopped only after someone told him that all of us could do the same and there was no need to show off.

This was also the first film where the most popular dialogues were delivered by the bad guy, Gabbar, played superlatively by Amjad Khan, and not the hero. “The dialogues reached a transcendental level. They are proverbial, aphoristic, dramatic. And they are fundamental to an Indian imagination in a filmy sense,” says social scientist Shiv Viswanathan.

The dialogues became unforgettable because the characters were unforgettable. “Sholay is an archetypical memory. Every character from Gabbar to Basanti to Raheem chacha, is archetypical. They all create a culture, a memory and possibility of new imitations,” he says.

Even the smallest of characters haven’t been forgotten. “Keshto Mukherjee’s cameo of a barber named Hariram is still remembered,” says film director Anil Sharma.

Stories, real and apocryphal
Mac Mohan acted in over 300 movies. In Sholay, his presence was reduced to sitting with a gun on a faraway rock. He got to say just three words, “Poorey pachaas hazaar”. But Sambha, his character’s name, became his lifelong identity. Just like Viju Khote, the recipient of Gabbar’s simple but scary one-liner, “Tera kya hoga, Kaalia?”.

In a 2015 interview, Khote told this reporter that the temperamental horse he rode threw him off at least six times. His remuneration for the aches and bruises was just Rs. 2,500. Fortunately, he did not break any bones.

Real or apocryphal, there is another story, wherein a groom refused to take the sacred vows unless the film’s dialogues were played. The missing record was brought and played. The wedding was solemnized.

For a film that has turned into lore, it is hard to believe that Sholay was dismissed as a flop in the early days of its release. In his autobiography, And Then One Day, actor Naseeruddin Shah writes about watching Sholay, running in its second week, at a “half-empty” theatre in Andheri, Bombay. Shah also writes that the blame for the failure was pinned on newbie Amjad.

Sharma, director of the megahit, Gadar, recalls coming home after watching the movie and being told by a film industry client of his father, an astrologer, “‘Sun rahe hain film flop ho gayi. Log Sholay ko Chholey (chickpeas) bol rahe hain.’ I had liked the film and told them so. But they were dismissive and said, you are too young to know about the film business. We got into a row.”

Sharma also loved the film’s impressive stereophonic sound. “When the coin was tossed and tinkled after falling on the ground, people would start looking for it beneath their seats,” he remembers.
Critics admitted to Sholay’s technological excellence but roundly panned the movie. The Illustrated Weekly of India (now defunct), a sister publication of The Times of India, said in its review: “There is nothing in the script of Salim-Javed to make this ‘the greatest story ever told’, it is just another dacoit tale on the lines of Mujhe Jeene Do, Gunga Jumna, Mera Gaon Mera Desh.”

The Statesman (New Delhi edition) said: “For nearly four hours, this film assaults one’s senses psychologically, emotionally and at the end almost physically.” Sunday Standard called it “a shaggy dog Western, sporadically funny, ludicrously heroic, monstrously violent and sprawled in loose limbed abandon”. Most reviews, barring Weekly, also ignored Amjad’s performance. The film received just one Filmfare award — for M S Shinde’s editing.

But over the decades, the film has been reappraised. In a classic case of overcompensation, Sholay was declared ‘The Best Film of 50 Years’ by Filmfare in 2005. In 2002, a British Film Institute poll hailed it as the ‘greatest’ Indian film ever made. The good times continue. “The movie is set for gala screenings at festivals in Toronto, London and New York in the coming months,” says Dungarpur.

But the critical re-evaluation aside, Sholay has become more than a movie, it has become a myth. Sharma sums it up, “Sholay now belongs to the public, not to the maker. The film has ruled over people’s hearts for 50 years. It will continue to do so for another 50 years.”

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Rajkumar Santoshi, Ramesh Sippy, Ananth Mahadevan and Rajesh Mapuskar remember actor Viju Khote, who passed away on Monday
Avinash.Lohana and Akash.Bhatnagar (MUMBAI MIRROR; October 1, 2019)

Viju Khote who rose to fame as Kaalia in Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay, going on to top it with the bumbling Robert and his “galti se mistake ho gaya” punchline in Andaz Apna Apna, passed away at 6.55 am on Monday, peacefully in his sleep at home. “He had multiple organ failure and had been unwell for quite some time,” the 77-year-old actor’s niece, Bhavana Balsavar, was quoted as saying.

Sippy informed that he had met Viju through his actress-sister Shubha Khote who’d requested that the filmmaker meet him. “We called him in, he fit the role of Kaalia and became popular after Sholay’s release, receiving loud applause whenever he delivered the dialogue (“Sardar, maine aapka namak khaya hai”) on stage,” he reminisces, adding that he had met the late actor a few days ago at a play. “As always, he came forward, touched my feet and said, ‘Sir, you made my life.’ He was a humble and wonderful person.”

Rajkumar Santoshi, who had directed Viju in Ghayal before Andaz Apna Apna, went on to cast him in subsequent directorials like Ghatak, China-Gate, Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani and Phata Poster Nikhla Hero. “He was a fantastic actor with very good timing. No one could’ve played Robert like he did. He would drop by whenever he was in Juhu. I’m currently writing the second part of Andaz Apna Apna and had a role for him in mind. He didn’t get the roles he deserved,” sighs Santoshi.

Ananth Mahadevan, whose association with the late actor dates back over 25 years, worked with him in several plays. The duo also went on to partner in the hit TV show, Zabaan Sambhal Ke. Viju also had a cameo in his actor-filmmaker friend’s 2015 directorial, Gour Hari Dastaan. “It’s sad that he’s gone, but he was ailing... I was fortunate to work with him on all the three platforms—films, theatre, TV—and had wanted to cast him in a lead role in one of my films but that never materialised,” he informs.

Ananth goes on to recount an incident that showcased Viju’s acting prowess. “We arrived in Kolkata to perform the play Yours, Mine and Ours and discovered that there was a bandh in the city. Worried that few people would turn up for our show, en route to the hotel, we wrote a skit titled Bandh-o-bust with Viju selling bandhs and I as the buyer. It was a huge success and everyone was amazed that we had pulled it off in just two hours. Only a theatre artiste could do that,” the actor-filmmaker reminisces.

Rajesh Mapuskar, who directed him in the 2016 Marathi comedy drama, Ventilator, was among the visitors at the Chandanwadi crematorium in Marine Lines for the last rites.

“Even if he didn’t have any scenes or rehearsals, he would be in my office. It worried me because he had to travel all the way from Girgaon but he insisted he didn’t like to sit at home,” the filmmaker shares, adding that another time, rehearsals for a scene with actor Jitendra Joshi, left the veteran actor in tears. “‘There was a time when I could remember the entire play, ab memory ki wajah se ek line nahin yaad aa rahi’, he had said. It moved me to tears too,” Rajesh concludes.

The veteran actor paased away at his residence in Mumbai on Monday
Onkar Kulkarni and Ismat Tahseen (BOMBAY TIMES; October 1, 2019)

Veteran actor Viju Khote, who played Kaalia in the iconic Bollywood film Sholay (1975), is no more. The 77-year-old died at 6.55 am of multiple organ failure at his residence in Mumbai.

“He passed away in his sleep at the residence. He had been unwell for quite some time,” actress Bhavana Balsavar, his niece, said.

Famous for his roles in Sholay and the Aamir Khan-Salman Khan-starrer, Andaz Apna Apna (1994), late Viju Khote began his acting career as a theatre actor. He is veteran actor Shubha Khote’s brother and actress Bhavana Balsavar’s uncle. Late actress Durga Khote was his aunt.

The actor, who was most remembered for his role in the 1993-sitcom Zabaan Sambhalke, starred in Hindi and Marathi movies. He was seen in films like Garam Masala, Pukar, Mela, China Gate and Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak among others. His last notable work includes Marathi film Ventilator (2016), which was produced by Priyanka Chopra Jonas. He was last seen in the Bollywood movie, Jaane Kyun De Yaaron (2018), which also starred Kabir Bedi.

Talking about the deceased actor, theatre personality Bharat Dabholkar says, “Viju was an integral part of my plays — over 25 of them — and my life. He was an amazing actor who must have done over 300 films. His comic timing was impeccable. But somehow, the Kaalia tag got stuck to him. Whenever we travelled, he would get mobbed. He was also a fantastic dancer, which not many people know. Whenever he would dance in my plays, he would put even renowned dancers to shame, and get an ovation from the audience.”

He added, “Above everything, Viju was a caring and sensitive human being. He would get tears in his eyes at the drop of a hat, and was the most gracious host. I am just glad that he went without suffering.”

Ramesh Sippy, who directed the actor in Sholay, said, “Most of Gabbar Singh’s lines from Sholay became folklore. Viju was part of one of the exchanges of dialogues between him and Gabbar. He did his job really well. The last time I met him was a few years ago when my wife and I had gone to see a play. He was present for the show with his sister Shubha Khote.”

Actor Rishi Kapoor wrote a heartfelt note for his friend on Twitter. He wrote, “RIP. Viju Khote. Dear friend over the years. Though much elder, we used to bike together along with sister Shobha Khoteji, when I was young. Passionate and well informed about American films. We will miss you. Viju kutte aahe? (sic).”