72. Sholay - Some more interesting tidbits!!

Second-last write-up on Sholay!!  Don’t worry, there is only one more blog left to write on this topic😊

Feroz Khan’s “Khotey Sikkey” which came before Sholay also was a story where Feroz Khan hires 5 petty criminals to nab the dacoit Ajit!!  Joginder, another actor and director, complained that the story is similar to his “Bindiya aur Bandook”!!  The massacre of Thakur’s family was inspired by a similar scene in “Once upon a time in the West” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ptjc9Vono4 . Actual scene in Sholay can be viewed here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkDFAC2WbEs from 5:55 mark to 10:55mark!! Viru’s tank scene was inspired by a movie called “The Secret of Santa Vittoria” featuring Anthony Quinn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaIdjUTa9yU. And the Sholay scene here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbZZecTFlW4

Viru’s tank scene was written by Javed Akhtar while driving to Bangalore airport from the shooting scene.  He then kept on writing the scene on the hood of the car while an assistant went inside the airport to do the check-in formalities.  Javed kept on writing till the final boarding call!

Jaya Bhaduri got pregnant during Sholay.  The lantern-lighting scene was shot from a distance so that her pregnancy is not visible on the screen! 

Salim Khan had a dhobi who always used to called out for his wife as “Arre of Shanti”.  Salim used this for Gabbar’s dialogue as “Arre O Saambha”!! 

To tell you how much time Sholay took to be made – One day Jeetendra met Ramesh Sippy in an airport and asked him if he is till making Sholay?  Ramesh Sippy said, Yes.  Jeetendra said he has completed 3 films from the time Sholay started being made😊

During the filming of Sholay, Dharmendra and Hema Malini were romancing.  During the shooting, Dharmendra used to bribe the spot-boys to make mistake in the scenes so that he can spend more time with Hema Malini😊. The spot-boys used to make mistakes like tripping some metal can, or disturbing the lighting or some such other things!!

During the last stage of shooting, it was felt by the unit that Gabbar was a misfit in the movie as his voice was not that powerful.  There were murmurs of him being removed from the film.  Salim-Javed had vouched for Amjad Khan and they too came under the strain after hearing these murmurs.  They approached Ramesh Sippy and said that if he wants he can replace Amjad Khan and they won’t mind.  But Ramesh Sippy was adamant and he said Amjad is my Gabbar.  Later on, Amjad Khan came to know of this and he was very angry with Salim-Javed.  He never worked with them again in his life after Sholay!!

In 1950’s another Sippy film had released and it was called Shole.  When Ramesh Sippy started working on the current movie, he renamed it by removing the “e” and adding “ay” to make it more impactful😊

Jagdeep was minutes away from walking out of the movie!! It so happened that Ramesh Sippy had asked Jagdeep to come to the shooting venue and Jagdeep came at that time.  But Ramesh was busy in shooting other scenes and Jagdeep had to wait.  Jagdeep went to production department and asked for some money to go to horse racing.  The production unit declined to give him any money!!   Fortunately, a senior guy understood the situation.  He asked the production department to give Jagdeep the money and also gave him some more from his own pocket!  This made Jagdeep happy and he stayed back and did his scenes!!

Amjad Khan was heading to Bangalore for the first day of the shooting.  When he reached the Mumbai airport, he found that the flight was delayed due to some technical issue.  Most of the passengers went back home but Gabbar stayed put and was determined to reach Bangalore the same day.  After a couple of hours, when the plane finally started, he was only among the 4-5 passengers who had stayed back to board the plane!!  While the flight was on its way to Bangalore, Amjad Khan’s only request to God was not to let the plane crash.  His terror was if the plane crashes, Danny will be Gabbar 😊😊

Yeh Dosti took 21 days to picturize and Koi Haseena took 20 days!! During the Jab Tak Hai Jaan song, Hema Malini had to dance in the scorching heat of May, on the actual rocks!! Sometimes it would rain and they had to use blowers to soak away the rain spots!!  Once Heme Malini complained that why Ramesh cannot shoot it indoors.  Ramesh said he wanted the audience to see the pain in her face when she is dancing for the song!! 

During the shooting of the song, as soon as the Director said “Cut”, her assistant would bring buckets of cold water to pour on her feet!!  While the scene had her walking on the glass pieces during the song, they put plastic pieces so that it did not hurt her feet.  But while throwing the bottle to cause the broken pieces, they used an actual glass bottle.  Even though it hurt her leg, she did not complain!!

One deleted scene from Sholay where Sachin gets killed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRDyuDz5GQg

There are still a lot to write about the movie, but I promise, the next blog would be the last one on this movie😊😊

Cheers!! 

Today’s Daffy Definition

Repentance – A detergent to wash off the sins!!