No Basanti or Radha, we just had 2 Armymen and a dacoit in mind: Javed Akhtar on 'Sholay'

Mumbai: There was no Basanti or Radha to begin with and Jai and Veeru started off as former army men sacked for indiscipline. And that's how the story of Sholay first took root in the minds of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar.

At that point, the two ace screenwriters had only a dacoit in mind, Akhtar told PTI as he looked back at 50 years of the film that achieved cult status. “It was Salim sahab’s idea that we should make a film about a retired major and two recruits from the army who have been removed because of indiscipline so the story was about them. But then we had limitations from the army and we couldn’t take liberty, hence we changed the characters to a cop and (two) hoodlums," he said.

"At that point, we didn’t think of Basanti or Radha, we just had a dacoit in mind. But gradually when the story got developed a lot of characters came into the picture and we felt it could be a great multi-starrer. We did not plan it as a multi-starrer, and a grand spectacle," he added ahead of the 50th anniversary of the film.

Sholay, directed by Ramesh Sippy and featuring an ensemble cast including Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Amjad Khan, Jaya Bachchan and Hema Malini, released on August 15, 1975. It failed initially and picked up as the weeks went by.

Salim-Javed had no inkling they were making a "timeless" Hindi cinema classic, Akhtar said.

Be it dialogues, the friendship between Amitabh Bachchan's Jai and Dharmendra's Veeru, Sanjeev Kumar's vengeful turn as Thakur or Amjad Khan's portrayal of the dreaded dacoit Gabbar Singh that went on to redefine the Hindi film villain, "Sholay" has stayed at the top of the pop culture charts -- for five decades and counting.

“I believe the canvas of the film was such that it just became timeless; it was not done intentionally. There was no deliberate attempt to do that (make it timeless).

"It had a sargam of human emotions, whether it is vendetta, spoken or unspoken love, friendship, simplicity of the village, smartness of two urban hoodlums. It was a symphony of all human emotions." The film just happened, said Akhtar. There was no conscious effort.

"Any product of art which is relevant in their own times and in the other times, and has timeless quality to it, irrespective of the changes in the industry over the years, that piece of art remains relevant,” the 80-year-old said.

The year 1975 is often celebrated as a landmark period in Indian cinema, with “Sholay” along with other classics like “Deewar", also penned by Salim-Javed, and “Aandhi” redefining storytelling in Hindi cinema.

Akhtar said the year changed his and Salim Khan’s lives, both personally and professionally.

“With the release of Deewar and Sholay, we earned money, garnered recognition, and made a name for ourselves. So the year 1975 was an important year,” he said.

The film’s cast also includes Sachin Pilgaonkar as Ahmed, Asrani as Jailer, AK Hangal Imam Saheb, Mac Mohan as Sambha, Jagdeep as Surma Bhopali and Viju Khote as Kalia among others.

If he were to rewrite Sholay today, is there anything he would do differently? “I would not change anything in ‘Sholay’. I would never rewrite ‘Sholay’. We made it the way it is. I’m glad so many people appreciated the film, and still talk about it with fondness,” Akhtar said.

In June, a restored version of Sholay featuring six minutes of extra footage, including its original ending where Gabbar is killed by Thakur, was screened at an international film festival in Italy.

The restoration process was spearheaded by Film Heritage Foundation and Sippy Films Pvt Ltd and took more than three years.

In the original version of the movie, Sanjeev Kumar’s Thakur extracts his revenge by killing Gabbar in the final moments. This was changed by the censor board during the Emergency. In the released version, Thakur walks away from an injured Gabbar as cops swoop in to arrest him.

“At that time, I was unhappy and disappointed that the ending was being changed but we had no choice but to do it,” Akhtar said.

And what would Jai and Veeru be doing if they were in 2025? “They would be in the corporate world. They are so badmaash where else would they go?” was Akhtar's prompt answer.