Random Musings

How was Sholay after 29 years? How does it compare to movies of today? And such questions are still left unanswered after my previous posting on the movie. The previous posting was clearly an unabashed appreciation of the film. But a week after viewing Sholay again, I can certainly afford to sit back and take a more balanced view and comment on other aspects with regards to the film.

I must say that this different view is on account of a prompting towards it, by a good friend, and I will take some ideas from the questions he posed, and comment on them.

Like for example, how does Sholay look in 2004?

Well, first of all, as soon as you enter the cinema hall and watch it come alive on screen, you can make out that its an ‘old’ film. Some of the things that make the film appear old:

a. The colours. Today’s films show nearly true colours. Same was not the case in the 70s. In relative terms, you do see weakness there. Its like how computers have gone from 16 colours to 256 colours to 16 million colours pallettes. I guess same applies for cinema too.

b. One of the worst offenders is the sound. And in that respect, I understand that technology was not the reason for the poor quality, as much as it was attitude. I quote this same friend, who is much more of an expert in this area, and he says, “They had raw material of the quality of Kishore and RD, and they created crap which was much worse that what Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong and the Beatles sounded like in the fifties and sixties. And _technology_ was obviously not a bottleneck here, because any good spool tape recorder and good mixing console in the seventies would have given RD the Frank Sinatra quality of sound. Those Hindi film bast***s just didn’t _care_. They just wanted to make their music for tinny radios playing in hair cutting saloons in Bhatinda and Jhumri Tilaiya … that was the limit of their sensibility. I’ll never forgive the Hindi film industry forthis. For a counterpoint, pick up Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hai, or any A R Rahman movie’s soundtrack.”

The point is very well made. Besides the songs, the general sound in the movie was too loud. There were many a scene in the film, which came out so loud that many in the audience put their hands over their ears. There are many new films that have loud sound, but I can scarcely remember any in recent times, where the audience has to cover their ears with their hands. The sound in Sholay appeared many times, to screech and scream at you, instead of just being loud.

c. Then there was a certain lack of finesse. Let me give a couple of examples. Take the song, “Holi ke din dil…”. Here is where there are a lot of extras who keep coming in and out of the dance sequence. At least on two occasions, I could sense as if the chappies were static when the camera started rolling, and THEN they started making their move. It did not seem seamless. Perhaps the fact that multiple cameras may not have been running, and the synchronisation with the music steps may not have been easy, if they were an already moving group. But if you care to notice, you could see this slightly jerky motion. Then there were a few of the fight sequences, which also had similar stop-and-move motions. Like the fight started a second AFTER the camera started rolling, and due to which there appeared to be a jerky motion.

Contrast the song and movement of extras with a particular sequence of the song “nimbuda” in HDDCS. Here the camera pans in a SINGLE SHOT, first a close up of Aishwarya as she is dancing a long single shot dance. Then the camera pans back and the shot becomes a longer shot, even as she continues the dance. And then the camera starts moving UP. And even while the shot continues to get captured, the camera has made a climb right to the top, and is now getting a top view on the dance going on downwards. And at that time, you see down, a large group of dancers (men) going in rows vertical and horizontal (criss-crossing), of course, in perfect synchronism. I am not sure if the description gives any idea of the phenomenal shot that was taken. Almost unbelievable. And if you don’t remember it, for this shot itself, it may be worth renting out the movie and seeing that song again, and watching it closely. I bet that single shot must have taken a few DAYS to get done. It demanded that much of perfect synchronism of all the elements.

**Just for brilliance in camera work and editing, you may also look at the first song in the same film, HDDCS. The song where Aishwarya plays ‘lagori’. Its an absolutely awesome piece of camera work, with focus / defocus, panning of camera, freeze shots, the slow motion capture of her hair swinging into her face, and all of it accompanied by fast paced music in the background. Amazing conception of the shot. **

d. And the special effects also had a lot of weaknesses. When Sanjeev Kumar is chasing Amjad on horseback, most of the shots were very long shots, and you could make out that some doubles are sitting on the horses. The few closeups went straight to the faces. I am sure today’s action heroes also have doubles doing the dirty work for them. But they have managed to do both, get a far better look on the double’s faces, so that they can afford to take relatively closer shots, and secondly, they have been able to superimpose the hero’s faces on the ‘in-action’ shots, to make it appear as if its the hero who is doing all of those dare-devil stunts.

There were also scenes like when Hema Malini is racing her horse carriage, as also when Dharmendra is singing and riding a bicycle next to her. It is so easy to see here, that they are moving themselves about, standing in one place, while the background view is moved on a large back screen, to make it appear as if they are racing away, and the trees and jungles are being left behind. Again there is an absence of front shots, showing Hema Malini riding her buggy herself, and coming towards the camera. The shots are right on her face or her body, but not with the full horse and carriage.

Contrast this to the song in Dil Chahata Hai, with Aamir Khan and Preity Zinta walking at a brisk pace, and the train rolling by, right next to them. Now even this shot could have easily been taken with them walking in a studio, and running the train movement, on a large background screen. It was quite likely done that way. But it is not made to appear like that. The first one or two times that I saw that song, I was actually amazed, as to how many shots they must have taken, to synchronise with the train’s time, and their own walking motion! It looked so real.

Some other questions:

– If Sholay were to be made in 2004, would I do anything different?

No, not really. I think, as pure entertainment value, it was perfect. With all its filmy dialogues, stunts and what not.. thats what made it the entertainer that it was.

– How do today’s films compare with Sholay?

Well, except for some technical issues like the ones listed above, today’s films do not come close to Sholay. For true and wholesome entertainment, I would take Sholay any day.

– So what are the really great movies according to me?

My choice is again based on entertainment value. For the 2-3 hours (sometimes slightly more) that we sit and watch the film, do we enjoy ourselves thoroughly? Whether its comedy, action, thrill, romance, or what have you, if a film captures you, keeps you glued to your seats, generates emotions and passions within you, I consider such films as good. Some of the movies that top my list of such entertainment are:

Sholay

Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (a clear number 2 in my list)

Amar Akbar Anthony (a perfect Manmohan Desai classic; leave your brains at home, and come and enjoy yourself – isme action bhi hai, drama bhi hai, emotion bhi hai, etc.. )

Deewar (a slick thriller, one of AB’s best performances)

Trishul (great dialogues, good match up of Sanjeev-AB, although several scenes of Shashi Kapoor, Poonam Dhillon, etc. were unnecessary),

Lagaan (cricket+Bollywood, what an unbeatable formula, for India),

Sarfarosh (lesser known, but slickly made),

Dil Chahata Hai (well made first film of Farhan),

Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (I didn’t care for its byline, ‘its all about loving your parents’; found it absolutely corny at that time, but the movie captures emotions beautifully; I understand that in a few scenes, many a man in the audience had moist eyes!),

1942 – A Love Story (Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s best; classic photography, RD’s swansong music, etc.)

There are a whole lot of comedies that were really good – Gol Mal, Chashme Badoor, Katha, Rang Birangi, Angoor, Chupke Chupke, Choti si Baat.

And among romantic films, with good music, etc., I would pick the likes of Kabhi Kabhi, Silsila, Aradhana, Amar Prem, Dil To Paagal Hai. Yes, indeed, Yash Chopra dominates this list. He has made this his clear speciality. What I love about most of these films, is the beautiful visuals, good music, and mushy love stories!

I don’t much care for Suraj Barjatya’s films (elaborate wedding set specials). I hated Devdas (extremely overrated; if I have to pick Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s second best film, it would have to be Khamoshi, his first film, and not Devdas). And I am not a great fan of Shah Rukh’s stammering and very standard acting style.

Would love to know others’ favourite films and logic for those too.. !

After enduring “Kyun..Ho Gaya Na?” for 2.5 hours (yeah, ‘enduring’ is the word; when I saw the morning papers, and they had given 2.5 stars to it, I wondered about it. I could have understood the 0.5 star just for having Aishwarya in it, but what for they gave the other two is beyond me), when I came out of the theatre last night, the posters of Sholay stared at me. I could not resist the temptation to pick up tickets for the grand classic of Indian cinema, for today itself. And I am so glad I did that.. seeing Sholay again, today, was just fabulous.

Well, everyone has seen Sholay. Most of us have seen it several times – too many times to even keep count. So it is hardly anything new that I will tell you about Sholay that you may not know, but still having revisited the classic in the cinema today, it is irresistible, to write about it again. By the way, I have also read the book “The Making of Sholay”, so I have a little more of an insight to the behind-the-scenes happenings related to the film.

Sholay was all Ramesh Sippy. A truly inspirational film from a (then) young and brilliant director. Kind of like what Dil Chahata Hai was for Farhan Akhtar, or KKHH was for Karan Johar, etc. But none of them, of course, come anywhere close to Sholay in terms of sheer scale of brilliance. Whenever a director really ‘thinks’ hard about the film that he is making, and then he is equipped with a very good script, then a great film can emerge. That takes a lot of time and effort, and in today’s times of churning out films, few film makers give that much to a film. Sholay took a lot more time and money than was originally budgetted for it. But that was because Ramesh Sippy was clear that he did not want to cut any corners in his vision for the film. It had to be exactly the way he had conceived the film. Which required more retakes, which required waiting for the right lighting, the right season, the perfect music score, the long hours at the editing table, etc. It is when all this happens, with a phenomenal potion of passion that a once-in-a-lifetime classic like Sholay can emerge.

I can bet that the toughest part of making Sholay would have been the editing. To finally deliver what was the 3.5 hours Sholay, must have meant a rejection of another 10 hours (at least) of shots taken.

According to me, the measure of a truly great film is one where you do not find ANY scene to be unnecessary. You do not wonder, “what was the need to show THIS”. Just to give you an example in total contrast, in Kyun Ho Gaya Na, till the interval, I kept wondering, what the entire first half of the movie was all about! And in Sholay, you could not spot one scene that was ‘extra’.

To list the few remarkable points about Sholay for me (and its MY struggle to ‘edit’ this list and keep only the really outstanding virtues here!):

1. The script and dialogues of Salim-Javed: as we saw it in the theatre today, there were just so many of us in the hall who kept mumbling the dialogues, even as they came on screen. Speaks about the effect that the dialogues had on the public. Memorable – kitne aadmi the, yeh haath mujhe dede thakur, hum angrez ke zamane ke jailor hai, tumhara naam kya hai basanti, etc. etc.

2. The cameos were memorable – whether it was Jagdeep with his Surma Bhopali character, or Asrani as the jailor. Small characters like Sambha (this was obviously his most famous movie, as I can barely remember his real name – for me, that chap will always be only Sambha), A K Hangal as the Imam, Mausiji, etc. were also well structured and left a mark.

3. Of course, the main characters were masterful. Starting with Gabbar. His entry was so well picturised – the noise of his shoes hitting stone as he went back and forth in the ravines, confronting Kalia and his two cronies, who have returned empty handed, the bullets holding belt swining back and forth, until he bursts out “suvar ke bacchon..” at which time, his menacing face jumps on the screen. The role was given so much meat, and the character was written out so well by the writers, that it was bound to be noticed, inspite of the galaxy of stars. Amjad Khan of coursed, grabbed this providential opportunity (originally, the role was to be played by Danny Denzongpa, but due to an accident and delay in being able to reach the sets, Ramesh Sippy had to make an alternate choice, and Amjad got the break) with both his hands, and delivered a masterful performance. Then there was Sanjeev Kumar, one of the best actors produced by India. A solid performance, as was consistently expected from him. Very controlled at times, and aggression and anger oozing out of him, at other times. Due to restricted movements, on account of being shown without hands for most of the film, his eyes and dialogue delivery did all the acting for him.Eyes were so expressive, almost spoke out his emotions completely. Amitabh and Dharmendra made a great pair. They complemented each other perfectly. Amitabh’s dialogue delivery and voice are his strengths, and its clear now, but those were early days, and he scored with those strengths even at that time. His repartee with Mausiji, when he taked Viru’s rishta for Basanti, is one of the best scenes of the film. Especially his last two dialogues there.. “kya karu, mera to dil hi kuch aisa hai… to me rishta pakka samjhu”!! And as for Dharmendra, he was just that perfect intuitive Punjabi Jat, who acted from his heart. Just gave it all. Did not ever convey that he was too intellectual, but obviously he was full of street wisdom. And that was what came out completely in this character. Total bufoonery, sincere friendship, undignified but couldn’t-care-less type of dancing, everything. Made to order role. Hema Malini was the perfect foil for Dharmendra. She also had a beautifully written role for herself, with some outstanding dialogues, and of course, her dances. The fact that at that time, the two of them, Dharmendra and Hema, were quite an item pair, did help in the on-screen chemistry. Jaya had a small role, in a way. And while she did justice to it, I would perhaps give more credit to Ramesh Sippy in bringing out that role creditably. The lighting that he used to project the widow Jaya, the close up shots, the background music, was what made the character so impressive. What she needed to do to support Ramesh Sippy’s vision, she certainly did that part well.

4. The music – well, what can you say.. it was vintage R D Burman. You know me, my blog is names rdfan.blogspot.com. I cannot find a fault in RD, so it will not be any surprise that I liked the music in this film. Not that there are many songs in the film that have reached outstanding heights, but all in all, songs like Mehbooba Mehbooba, Yeh Dosti, Holi Ke Din, and Haa Jab Tak Hai Jaan, were all good and very relevant for the film. (** This is again, so important for a good Bollywood film, at least in my books. That a song has meaning for the film and its story. In today’s times, the way songs happen in a film, is like this. A music director has created scores and kept them ready. When a director approaches him, he pulls out his stock and shows to the director. Quite like a salesman showing his wares. And for the world of me, I cannot fathom this style. I would always feel that music has to be CREATED for a story and for its situation. Not that you get a good score and find a way to put it inside a story. When the latter happens, you can see that the song jars, and seems so out of place. For that not to happen, the director has to demand, and the music director has to deliver. Both take effort which does not happen too often these days. The last movie in recent times, where I saw this dedication was Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, a kind of period film, for it shows not a typical city story where anything can go, but rather a small Gujarat town based film, and the music was indeed created for that specific period and place, and came out perfectly **) Besides the songs, the background score that comes through the film, in Sholay, was also so haunting. When Amitabh plays the harmonica, and Jaya is turning out the lights, that music in the background, is beautiful. I am not sure if RD was responsible for the background music also, or someone else was. Whoever it was, it was good.

Beyond all these, and far above it all, is the editing and the direction. Ramesh Sippy all the way. Hats off to him. Obviously a film like Sholay happens once in a lifetime, even for a great film maker like Ramesh Sippy. So it would be harsh to say that his subsequent films did not measure up. Nothing can measure up to Sholay. And even if it was just that one great film, I would still salute Ramesh Sippy. In fact, he did more than that – he also brought us Sagar, the return of Dimple Kapadia, after Bobby. And he was also responsible for one of the earliest successful soap operas on Indian TV, Buniyaad.

I also understand that G P Sippy needs to be given a lot of credit for Sholay for having backed Ramesh and his exuberance totally and completely, including the exceeding budgets. It takes a lot of courage to do so, and also gives the youngster so much confidence. (* I understand that Yash Johar showed similar confidence in Karan when Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was being made *)

Small trivia related to Sholay.

At a recent awards function where Amitabh and Dharmendra were on the stage together, Amitabh ‘Jay’ Bachhan thanked ‘Viru’ Dharmendra for having referred his name to Ramesh Sippy, for Sholay. Remember that when Sholay was started, Zanjeer had not even been released. So Amitabh was just that young raw talent that had still to really prove himself. Of course, by the time Sholay was being made, Zanjeer had been released and the angry young man had arrived. But AB does recognise the role of Sholay in his career and was generous to publicly acknowledge Dharmendra’s role in recommending him for the role.

They don’t make them like Sholay anymore. I think Sholay deserves the suggestion to be considered as India’s third great epic, after Ramayana and Mahabharata!

Time was when there was only Bombay Telephones. Oh sure, we had problems then. When it rained heavily, phones could be down for weeks, if not months. You had to keep the lineman in good humour (well, everyone knows what that means!), if you wanted your phone to be alive.

Then Bombay Telephones became MTNL.. a lot better service, with the coporatisation. Phones actually worked more regularly, and then we started expecting them to work all the time. Talk about customer expectation! So when they went down, for the few hours or so, we panicked, we shouted, and we paid the linesman.. and then we got the phone working.

Then came the mobile phones. First we had BPL and Orange in our city. Numbers were simple – 98200 for Orange, and 98210 for BPL. Till that time, it was clear.. if someone gave you a phone number like 4123374, you know the phone was in Matunga. 4229234 was in Dadar, and 4943590 was perhaps in Worli or Prabhadevi at most. You could recognise the area, from the first three digits of the phone. You could also recognise that 98200-12345 was an Orange phone, from Mumbai, and 98210-23456 was a BPL phone from Mumbai.

But then, in the last 2-3 years, they have gone and totally messed up things.

MTNL came out with their own mobile service. Numbers were similar to their landline numbers. Only a very close observation would indicate that a number was an MTNL mobile number and not a landline. Then came Reliance, Hughes, Tata, Airtel – prepaid, postpaid, fixed wireless phones, whew! Suddenly it seemed like the dams were broken.

Now we have numbers like 98922, 33014000, 56934500, and what not. You cannot just make out, whether the phone number is a landline or a mobile or a fixed wireless phone. You cannot make out where the landline could be located in the city, you cannot make out, if an STD call is coming in, on to your cell phone. In other words, a phone number gives you almost no hint about its origins, its allegiance, its wired or wireless nature, etc.

If the phone number itself was not confusing enough, there is a provision that is available for most users – to divert phones coming on a phone number to another number. So if you feel that you are calling what is clearly a cell phone numbers, say 98200-24680, the recipient could have easily diverted the calls on that number to his landline. So in fact, you might be actually calling a landline!

Why did they mess things up thus? I miss those good old days of simplicity. Phone numbers that could tell their own history and geography. But now with the new phone numbers, it appears as if “geography is history”!!

Day before yesterday, was the fourth consecutive day of heaviest continuous rains, in Mumbai. When I woke up in the morning, I realised that it must have rained all night. It was completely overcast, and there were clear indications that traffic must be terrible. There was a chance that the kids’ school may also be closed for the day, but it wasn’t.

That was the day when most people do not go to work, and at least, don’t drive down, fearing the worst traffic mess ups. But in such cases, I have a different theory…

1. When it rains so heavily and most people might not venture out in the rains, the traffic is usually very thin, and if you do go out on the roads, at least the traffic will not bother you.

2. If you have one of the newer models of cars, it can virtually swim through water and not get stuck. You may take a chance in that case.

3. And if you avoid some expected tough water logging spots, you may not be bad off at all.

Which is exactly what I did that morning. And reached work in 45 minutes. My average commute on any regular working day, in the morning, is almost that much. So with the diversions that I took, with the potholes that did not allow speed to happen, and with rains lashing hard on the front glass, I still made it in as much time, as I normally take on a week day.

And the return that night was even more startling. With return peak traffic that I normally encounter, I usually take an hour or a little more than that to commute back. And on that day, I got home in 30 minutes flat! Rains had cleared off to an extent, but there were hardly any vehicles on the road. Regular commuters had not even started from home. There were not many takers for cabs who appeared to have not started out in large numbers that day (moreover, their Premier Padminis are most vulnerable in the rains). And goods vehicles had not started out, I guess, because the workers having not reached, the warehouses did not load out goods, nor received new vehicles for unloading. All in all, it made for one smooth ride back home!

Now the extension of the same theory works like this:

1. The day following the heavy rains, when the sun comes out, its the worst day to be out on the roads. Everyone who stayed at home, is out with a vengeance. And that is disaster. Today was that day, for me, and it took me a good 1.5 hours almost, to reach home, from work!

2. What is also a bad time to be caught on the road, is when there is a sudden outburst of rain, in the middle of the day. If it was dry in the morning, and then all of a sudden, there is this huge downpour. Nobody is ready for it, and end up going slow on the busy roads.. !

Mumbai went through one of the big big rain spells over the last 5-6 days. The sun came out today, after almost 5 days. And as Mumbai rains go, when it rained, it rained and rained..

Its a normal sight during such times, to see a humungous amount of water logging, with appearance of high tidal waves, on the roads. Well, that used to be in earlier years. This year, for a change, the water logging was hardly to be seen. The regular places where water piles up, like the King’s Circle / Gandhi Market area, were near perfect, as far as water logging goes. The area of Parel – Elphinstone road was still bad, at least 2 of these days. Perhaps that is a real low lying area patch, and there is nothing that can be done about it. But at other usual suspect places, it appears that the municipal authorities had done a good job of cleaning the sewers before the monsoon set in. And the water not piling up, in these places, was evidence of that.

But where they scored with the water drainage, the municipal authorities badly let down the citizens in the area of road conditions. After the first big rain day itself, things were terrible. Each and every road, it appeared, had given way. There were these huge potholes everywhere. Traffic goes to a crawl, with every vehicle going ever so slowly, to avoid the potholes. Vehicles suddenly veer to the left or right, when you least expect them to, as the driver tried to avoid one more hole. Fuel efficiency goes for a toss (what fuel efficiency?!). This at a time, when petrol prices are at an all time high in India, being above Rs. 42 per litre. And the tyres go through a huge test of strength. Not to speak of the test of patience of the drivers!!

Of course, the potholes bother you when it stops raining. When its raining big, you do not even see the pothole, as these are filled up with water, and you do not know what part of the road is road, and what part is the hole!

C’est la vie in Mumbai, in the rains.. !