In Ramanagara, ‘Sholay’ lives on in memories, myths and a village’s lost moments

The blockbuster, marking its 50th year, was shot against a spectacular range of rocky hills near Bengaluru. S R Ramakrishna brings back warm memories from the locations.

Often described as India’s biggest box office sensation — they say its tickets outsold modern-day blockbusters ‘RRR’ and ‘Bahubali’ put together — ‘Sholay’, the 1975 film is not without its share of critics.

Lead Amitabh Bachchan against the rocky boulders.

Some say the story, written by Salim-Javed, is a mish-mash of Hollywood and Japanese classics; others say it has no moral centre. But no one denies that ‘Sholay’ enjoys an iconic status in Indian film history. A hundred theatres screened the film without a break for 25 weeks, and 60 theatres for 50 weeks. Silver jubilees and golden jubilees, these milestones were called in a pre-multiplex, pre-OTT era.

The film’s spectacular train scenes were shot in Hejjala, a quiet railway station in Bengaluru South district.

In Ramanagara, about an hour and a half by road from M G Road, Bengaluru, ‘Sholay’ is a bunch of sepia memories.

Boramma was seven when the unit came and camped at Konkanidoddi, a village with just a couple of streets, near Ramanagara. She used to go with her parents to watch the shooting, and one day, she was roped in for a scene. Dacoits come galloping on horses, and leave the village in a disarray. As the cameras rolled, Boramma found herself in the middle of the action, and was pushed to the ground. She was bruised, and once the shot was done, she became the centre of attention. The stars gathered around her, picked her up in their arms, and calmed her down.

Jai and Veeru ride under the canopy of Doddaalada Mara (the big banyan tree) in the friendship anthem Yeh dosti.

“Dharmendra sir and Amjad Khan sir spoke words of consolation, and  Reshma, the dupe for Hema Malini, took special care of me,” says Boramma.

In subsequent years, Reshma kept in touch with Boramma, who has five children, all married. Last year, she was invited to Mumbai for Dharmendra’s birthday, and the hosts had made bookings for her and a daughter to accompany her. “I couldn’t go, and now I hear the news that he is gone,” she says.

Dharmendra was the one who socialised easily with the people in Konkanidoddi. “They called it Sippynagar for a while,” she says. The film was produced by G P Sippy and directed by his son Ramesh Sippy. The other hero, Amitabh Bachchan, was reticent, like the character Jai he plays in ‘Sholay’. “Dharmendra and the other actors spoke in Hindi and we spoke in Kannada, and all of us ended up laughing,” she recalls.DH PHOTO B K JANARDHAN

The unit camped in the village between 1973 and 1975, with the unit coming mostly from Mumbai. “They had erected sheds for them to stay,” she recalls. “And they fed the entire village all through the shooting years.”

The horses came from Tamil Nadu, says A S Krishnamurthy, who has built Srikrishna Smruti Kalyana Mantapa on the Bengaluru-Mysuru highway. A huge Hanuman statue stands adjoining the building, and a path nearby leads to where the film was shot. A residential layout and a colony of Iruliga tribals have come up along the way. “They erected a mosque here, and two water tanks,” he says, pointing to a place not too far from the highway. The unit had taken the land on rent from the owners, who have now fenced it and placed a gate.

In a comedy interlude in an otherwise intense revenge drama, Dharmendra, playing Veeru, climbs up the water tank and threatens to jump if he can’t marry Basanti, played by Hema Malini. While the first tank was shot from below to indicate the elevation, the second was just a set on the ground depicting the top of the tank. Krishnamurthy, who was a teen when the film was shot, remembers how Dharmendra and Amitabh came riding on a motorcycle from Doddaalada Mara (the big banyan tree), when they were shooting for the song ‘Yeh dosti.’

The landscape, dotted with spectacular monoliths, is what brings film units from all over India to Ramanagara. Krishnamurthy, 84, had seen a film unit shooting a car falling from a hilltop before the ‘Sholay’ unit came camping. “Several Kannada, Tamil and Telugu films were shot here subsequently,” he says. In 1984, parts of David Lean’s film ‘Passage to India’ were shot here. “They created window-like openings by blasting the rocks,” he recalls. The rock face was used to represent Marabar Caves, the fictional Bihar locale where the E M Forster novel is set. A proposal to carve out a Buddha from one of the monoliths is on hold because of environmental concerns. Leopards are occasionally sighted in the area.

The stars who came to shoot for ‘Sholay’ stayed at Hotel Ashok, now called the Lalit Ashok, and Hotel Bangalore International, and drove to the location every day. The unit built a curving road for their vehicles to reach the spot, and it remains to this day, providing access to Ramadevarabetta, a hill with a couple of temples and a panoramic view. The stacking of stones suggest a fort-like structure dating back to Kempegowda’s time (16th century), and some of the diabolical Gabbar Singh scenes (‘Arre o Samba!’) were shot against this background.

Not much has been done to promote Ramadevarabetta as a tourist or pilgrim destination, and that keeps it relatively free of crowds. It takes a 400-step climb to get to the top of the hill, a favourite with young couples who like the sights and sounds of the wooded ascent, not to speak of the privacy.

Ramanagara district was officially renamed Bengaluru South in May this year, and that has helped real estate prices inch up, says S Rudreshwara, a journalist whose doctoral thesis documents the cultural practices of the tribal communities of the district. Ramanagara was the name Kengal Hanumanthaiah, chief minister between 1952 and 1956, gave to the place. In the British era, it was called Closepet, after Sir Robert Close (1756-1813), a general in the East India Company. In Tipu Sultan’s time (late 18th century), the town was called Rahimnagar and Shamserabad. The legend goes that Rama shot Kakasura, a demon in the form of a crow, for tormenting Sita, and created a pond by shooting another arrow into a rock. The water body next to the Rama temple is believed to be this pond, and Rudreshwara says crows are rarely seen around the hill.

The vulture sanctuary nearby harks back to the Jatayu story in the ‘Ramayana’. The bird makes a heroic attempt to save Sita from Ravana, and Ravana, the story goes, chops off one of his wings and leaves him mortally wounded. “We see only two vultures these days,” says Krishnamurthy, pointing to a perch on a hill. The Rama legend segued into the ‘Sholay’ screenplay — the village terrorised by Gabbar Singh was called Ramgad.

‘Sholay’ was screened in ‘70 mm with stereophonic sound’. The spectacular train scenes, which open the film, were shot in Hejjala, an hour’s drive from Ramanagara. “They had permission to shoot there, although Ramanagara also has a station. Hejjala was a less busy station, and they could shoot at their pace,” says Krishnamurthy.

Much of the location is now under the forest department, and cars with families do drive in. Gurulingaiah, who works as a forest watcher, is used to film buffs visiting the spot with eager questions about ‘Sholay’. He tells them everything he remembers. “Most of the village shots were shot on the ground here. They didn’t go up the hill much,” he says, although the editing gives viewers the impression that the action is set in a remote village surrounded by rocky hills. The location is barely a five-minute drive from the highway.

M G Nagaraja, historian, says an inscription dating back to 1540 AD shows that Kempanadevarasa (Kempegowda) built a monastery on top of the hill. He also used a treasure he found here to build Bengaluru. The 96-year-old, now a resident of Bengaluru, was 37 when he saw ‘Sholay’ being shot. He was particularly impressed by Sanjeev Kumar’s histrionics. “Hema Malini used to go in a tonga to Bidadi for fun,” he says.

As for the moral centre question, what exactly does ‘Sholay’ say? Perhaps that drifters can be heroes — they can pull off what regular people, including upright policemen, can’t. Friends can be opposite poles, and yet remain steadfast. Not all criminals are the same. Some, like Gabbar Singh, are pure evil, while others, like Jai and Veeru, can have a heart of gold. Given the right circumstances, even simple village folks can rise in revolt against a cruel oppressor. Love and honour shine and fade in ways we can never predict. And, going by the story of Boramma and Dharmendra, warmth cuts across barriers of language, class and distance.

And as for Ramgad, it also stays in the memory of a Malayali family that runs a vegetarian restaurant across the highway. They used to run a canteen at the Ramanagara railway station when ‘Sholay’ was shot around here. Their restaurant is called Hotel Ramgad. And their samba(r) is arre oh good!

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