Neither aag nor sholay, this just leaves you stone cold
“Kitney?†This is the line you’ve been waiting for, because this is where the real connect between the old and the new begins. Instantly, you are back to the original. To the “kitney aadmi thhey?†To bearded brigand Gabbar, in faded olive green fatigues, boots and whip cracking in a mad medley, as he questions his three cohorts. Laughing his head off. And then blowing their heads off, high-pitched whine dying on the rocky outcrops of Ramgarh, along with the three disgraced dakus.
Yesterday’s “kitney?†belongs not to Gabbar, but Babban. To Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, not to Sholay. To Amitabh Bachchan, who’s taken on Gabbar’s mantle, not in Ramgarh, but in Mumbai. Babban asks the question. Babban laughs. Babban shoots his goons dead. But, there is no frisson when Babban asks, laughs, shoots. Your hair doesn’t stand on end. It happens. You look at Babban’s scar on the nose, admire the make-up man’s handiwork, and grit your teeth. And wait for the bitter end.
Within months of its release in the summer of 1975, when Gabbar Singh first said those words, Sholay became a milestone. You remember that year for the Emergency and for the first spaghetti western India made, which turned out to be a monster hit. Zanjeer ( ‘73) and Deewar ( also ‘75) bookended it; Yaadon Ki Baraat started the whole vendetta series in Bollywood. All three were superhits. But not one of them could rival Sholay. It became, then and forever, much more than a mere movie. It divided Bollywood neatly down the middle: BS or AS.
Sometimes, very rarely, a movie becomes magic. Each of its moving parts meshes so beautifully with the other that it becomes difficult to imagine the movie without it. Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay was one such. Jai and Veeru, aka Amitabh and Dharmendra, may not have been the first buddy pair in Bollywood, but they re-defined dosti in the movies, even if Jai folded his long legs in that dinky sidecar of the bike, normally reserved for comic Parsi characters. Motormouth Basanti and her flick-tailed ghodi Dhanno, now that was a great pair too.
Thakur Saheb’s voluminous grey shawl and the horrifying secrets it hid will always be remembered as Sanjiv Kumar’s most visible prop. And the haunting melody on the harmonica Amitabh serenades the widow Jaya with — close your eyes, and you are transported. Thirty-seven years back, instantly.
Ram Gopal Varma said, when he started out, that it would be a remake. But then came the prolonged legal wrangle with the Sippys over the copyright. It sputtered, nearly sank, and then got back on the floors as a “tributeâ€. In the last week or so, in the run-up to yesterday’s release, he’s been quoted as saying that it is a “representationâ€.
So Sanjiv Kumar’s vengeful Thakur is played by Mohanlal’s Narasimha. Jai is Raj, Veeru is Heero: the former is rank newcomer Prashant Raj, who has none of the broody drop-dead sexy feel of the old Jai ( remember that groovy red-shirt and blue jeans?); the latter is Ajay Devgan, who has none of Veeru’s muscular humour (that priceless chakki peecing sequence). This has to be, doubtlessly, his worst role till date. And to even compare Nisha Kothari’s graceless Ghungroo with Hema Malini’s Basanti is sacrilege.
Why did RGV, who claims to have seen the movie 27 times, and counting, do this? Bad judgement? Or pure hubris?
Clearly, his skills as a master story-teller of the Mumbai underworld have deserted him. Sholay wasn’t an original: Ramesh Sippy borrowed liberally from Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone; in places, whole scenes from movies have been lifted. But the collaboration of director Sippy, scriptwriters Salim-Javed, music maestro R D Burman, scenarist Ram Yedekar, and each of the actors, turned it into an all-time magnificent entertainer.
At one place, Babban thunders: “sholay barsenge, sholay.†Or words to that effect. You wish he hadn’t. Because this is no aag, nor sholay. Just crumbling cinders.