(BBC) Iconic Bollywood movie Sholay has been finally released in cinemas in Pakistan nearly 40 years after it first took India by storm, writes the BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad.
It might never have been shown in a cinema before – but that doesn’t mean the audience don’t know the lines.
“How many were they?” asks Gabbar Singh, Bollywood’s most recognisable bad guy, delivering one of his most memorable lines in his familiar drawl, tinged with irony.
Before the dark, fat-cheeked henchman of Singh’s extortion brigade can utter his line, a giggly female voice from the back row beats him to it, whispering: “They were two, chief.”
And the audience continue to respond to dialogue, situations and songs with a quip, a laugh or a slap on the thigh throughout the 204-minute film.
‘Delivers the punch’
That, to most people, is the real magic of Sholay (Embers), the 1975 blockbuster which is reputedly Bollywood’s most-watched film worldwide.
“People come to see it not for its drama or suspense – everyone has seen it at least once – but because it never ceases to deliver the punch,” says one viewer at Islamabad’s Centaurus Cineplex.
The movie hit the big screen in Pakistan on 17 April and even though it’s 40 years old, it hasn’t yet run out of wind, says Aamir Haider, a director of Mandviwala Entertainment, the company that owns Sholay’s distribution rights in Pakistan.
“During the first week of its release, it has grossed 4.5m Pakistani rupees ($45,000), which is just about a tenth of what you’d expect from a new [Bollywood] blockbuster like PK, but still enough if you also count the prestige that goes with showing an old classic,” he says.
“In fact, Sholay has done better than most Indian films older than 10 years shown in Pakistan so far, including Devdas, the 2002 classic which, besides being a mega hit, starred Shah Rukh Khan, who is widely popular among Pakistanis,” he says.
Enduring appeal
So what is the secret of Sholay’s enduring appeal?
It is the usual good-versus-evil saga which traces the battle of Ramgarh, a fictitious village in India’s northern Uttar Pradesh, against a maniacal and sadistic bandit, Gabbar Singh, arguably the most powerful character in the film.
The movie hit the big screen in Pakistan on 17 April
The story is told through the exploits of two small-time thieves, Jai and Veeru, played by superstars Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra, and the bond that they build with a former jailer and prominent landowner of Ramgarh, Thakur Baldev Singh.
Seen by many as having been inspired by the spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s, Sholay succeeded in turning all the themes, situations and characters of that genre into an Indian narrative.
Its power came from its memorable dialogue, delivered by characters finely etched with individual traits and nuances.
