In attempting an analysis of Sholay, I’m painfully aware that I’m no trailblazer. Yet as a lover of Hindi cinema, and as an Indian, who like other Indians has loved and watched Sholay countless number of times, I feel compelled to contribute to the enormous corpus of information available on this film.


Use of the flashback in Sholay

The film constantly refers back to itself in its use of the flashback technique as a narrative device. The plot of the film continuously delays and defers explanations. These are later revealed only when it becomes absolutely crucial for the characters (and the audience) to know how the present state of circumstances came to be. It should be noted that these explanations occur for the benefit of certain characters in the film itself, and thereby for the audience. The flashback, in this film, is not used only to provide “back-story” to the audience, as is usually done in most other films where it is used.

The reluctance to provide details instantly can be seen in the first scene in the film itself. In a leisurely establishment shot (which actually establishes nothing in particular), we see a train pull up on an empty station in a remote village, we suppose, and a lone police officer stepping out of the train. “Where he is going? For what purpose?” – the film takes its own time to answer these questions. In the next seen, we see the Thakur instructing the police officer to find Jai and Veeru for him. The questions we asked in the first scene are answered only in the next scene (although not with the help of a flashback – the events here are chronological). The flashback pattern begins to operate at this juncture. The police officer (articulating the audience’s curiosity) asks the Thakur what he wants the two petty thieves for. Here, the film cuts into a flashback of the train dacoity scene where Jai and Veeru save Thakur’s life. As a result of the flashback, the police officer and the audience have found their answer.

This pattern also tells us how the Thakur’s arms were mutilated. After the dacoits have attacked the village on Holi and have been driven out by Jai and Veeru, Veeru asks the Thakur, “Why didn’t you pick up the gun?” The audience at this point is curious to know the same and also why Thakur is wrapped in a shawl at all times. The film once again diverges into a flashback at this juncture and we witness the mutilation of Thakur’s arms.

This stalling of explication occurs and a subsequent flashback in the film’s narrative, such as when Jai asks Thakur’s helper about Radha’s silent nature. Here, the flashback shows Radha as a boisterous, talkative girl as compared to her present subdued nature on account of the terrible tragedy she has suffered.

The flashback, then, is not simply a narrative technique in the film, but an independent motif by itself. Its most basic purpose is obviously to maintain suspense in the minds of the audience for as along as possible. As we start to wonder why someone behaves a certain way in the film, why things are the way they are, a character within the film steps up on our behalf and pops the question for us. This is an interesting way in which the film relates to the audience outside the film. Instead of reaching out, in draws them in. This is an idea of “intra-textuality” which the film, through the use of recurrent motifs, is able to achieve.

Dualism and the “khota sikka”

In scene 2, the police officer refers to Jai and Veeru as “khotey sikke”, uni-dimensional and worthless as criminals. Here, the Thakur replies that there is a fundamental difference between fake coins and human beings – human beings are not one-dimensional. This dialogue, occurring at the very beginning of the film, points towards the ideological dualism and ambivalence that we see throughout the film.

A film is not only a representation of plot and character, but also of a system of values or ideological positions. We see these ideological positions in conflict with each other through the course of the film, and this conflict is resolved when the film, at its conclusion, upholds one system of values and denounces the other. The simplest conflict of values in most popular cinema is the one between good and evil, represented by the hero and the villain respectively. The death of the villain at the end of the film signifies the prevalence of good over evil.

The good/evil contention is present in Sholay as well, clearly polarized between the Thakur and nemesis, Gabbar Singh. These two characters also symbolize the ideological conflict between law-making and law-breaking in the film respectively. Thus, the triumph of good over evil is not depicted through the death of the villain at the hands, or rather feet, of the hero. The hero, also being representative of the law-maker cannot be the perpetrator of cold-blooded murder. Then, he would be no different from the villain, or the one on the wrong side of the law. The timely intervention of the police a second before the Thakur is going to crush Gabbar under his feet ensures this does not happen. Evil has to be captured and constrained, not obliterated, because, quite obviously, there can be no absolute deletion of evil from the world. The good/evil conflict within the film is then subsumed under the law-making/law-breaking conflict.

The ambivalence in this theme can be seen in the characters of Jai and Veeru. At the onset of the film they are on the wrong side of the law. Just like the film never explains why Gabbar is so trigger happy, we never come to know why Jai and Veeru prefer to live their lives as petty thieves. The ambivalence starts to diffuse when we see the two transform into potential “family men” from vagabond criminals.

Almost the entire film depicts a rupture of the institution of the family. Most of the characters in the film do not have any known family ties, like Jai and Veeru. Basanti lives with her Mausi and has no immediate family. The Thakur’s family is murdered by Gabbar, who also kills Imam Chacha’s only son, Ahmed.

Jai and Veeru signify the conflict between the comic and the cynic within the film. The comic is a conformist, indulging in ridicule and buffoonery within the limits of law and legitimacy. The cynic, on the other hand, is a commentator who places himself outside society and outside the community. The conflict comes through in the characterization of the two and also in their attitude towards love. Veeru is boisterous and dramatic, finding a soulmate of sorts in the equally noisy Basanti. Their love story is full of fun and teasing, as their scenes together offer comic relief at several points in the film. The unarticulated romance of Jai and Radha comes as a stark contrast to the Veeru-Basanti love-track. There is hardly as exchange of words, all sympathy between the characters coming through expressions and actions only. Also, this love story has a tragic end, with the death of Jai.

The death of Jai symbolizes also the death of the cynic. The cynic is a figure who threatens to disrupt society due to his starkly realistic and at times, pessimistic outlook towards the world. He has to be either reformed or removed from society. Sholay decides to remove him. The cynicism of Jai is a milder form of cynicism compared to the ultimate cynic in the film, the villain, Gabbar Singh. The parallel between the two can be seen in the way both invert emotion in dialogue.

Before shooting Kalia, this is the conversation that takes place between him and Gabbar:

Gabbar: Ab tera kya hoga, Kalia?

Kalia: Sardar, maine aapka namak khaya hai…

Gabbar: Ab goli kha.

Gabbar has substituted the sense of loyalty in the word “namak” with the sense of violence in the word “goli”. This kind of substitution is what Jai also does at another point in the film. Consider the dialogue between him and Veeru after they have arrived at Thakur’s bungalow after a ride in Basanti’s tonga:

Veeru (referring to Basanti): Bahut pyari baatien karti hai.

Jai: Bahut pyari nahi, bahut saari baatein karti hai.

Just as Veeru tries to romanticize Basanti’s talkativeness, Jai brings him down to earth. But the audience does not see Gabbar and Jai as being similar to each other. Gabbar’s inversion evokes terror, Jai’s only humour. We mourn the death of Jai and rejoice in the capture of Gabbar. Their respective levels of cynicism help to shape the audience’s attitude towards them.

The frequent coin tosses within the film also hint towards the strain of dualism in the film. Whenever Jai tosses his coin and makes a decision, there is a feeling that it could have very well gone the other way. All their decisions, right from taking the Thakur to hospital and coming to Ramgarh, seem to be chance. The point in the film where we discover that the coin was “khota” after all, is also the point in the film when this sense of dualism starts to integrate itself into a unified value system. The film does present ideological ambivalence but makes sure all the loose ends are tied up at the end.

Jai, the cynic dies. Gabbar is captured. Veeru’s nomadic tendencies will be curbed with his anticipated marriage to Basanti. Their marriage also signals the reconstitution of the family, which is invisible in the rest of the film. The film restores order at the end of the film as all the conflicts are resolved. This integration of values in the film is the semiotic function of the “khota sikka” mentioned at the start of the film. Interestingly, Khotey Sikke is also the name of the film that Sholay is said to be based on.



“Performance” motif in Sholay

The comic sequences in Sholay operate on the “performance” motif, in the sense that one gets the impression that the character in question is performing for an audience as on stage and not on film.

Most of the comic scenes in the film are limited to the first half of the movie and are not incidental, but have been deliberately inserted for the purpose of comic relief. This offers a contrast to the second half of the film, which concentrates on the defeat of Gabbar Singh.

The “performance” motif is seen both in the comic scenes that involve the protagonists and some of the minor characters as well. The first example of this motif can be seen in the ‘Soorma Bhopali’ scene. This character is fond of telling tall stories of his bravado and does so sitting on a table, on a higher level than his audience, an enraptured group of villagers. Another example of this is Asrani’s hilarious parody of Hitler in the jail sequences. Here, he too appears first on a height, much like a raised platform and entertains the prisoners and the audience with his imitation of the “great dictator”.

Perhaps the most famous example of this motif is Veeru’s ‘suicide scene’. Veeru’s stage is a water-tank, his audience and amused bunch of villagers.

“Performance” is also apparent in one of the more serious scenes in the film – Gabbar Singh’s introduction scene. The first shot we see of him is a shot of his legs on a rock. This makes the power relationship between him and the other dacoits immediately clear.

There are many factors common to these scenes: some kind of a raised area where the performing character is placed, an audience within the film, and a lot of superfluous dialogue given to the performing character. The character relates to the audience in the film and outside it in the manner in which the stage actor relates to her/his audience.

Udaan - Talking Frames

I have always felt that there are no "good" films or "bad" films. There are either thoughtfully made films or thoughtlessly made films. And I would definitely place Udaan (Vikramaditya Motwane, 2010) in the former category. This is mainly because the director has paid a lot of attention to detail in this film. And "attention to detail" is not something that we get to see very often in most of Hindi cinema. Motwane here makes sure that every frame of his movie speaks to us - even if his actors in it have no lines, or even if they are not present in it at all.

For instance, there is a scene in the film when Rohan's father, tells him in a dunken stupor that he looks like a girl. When I thought over this, it did seem true that the actor, Rajat Barmecha, does have feminine features, which stand in direct contrast to his father's very "alpha-male" physical appearence. Where Rohan has big, round eyes and bow-shaped lips, his father is made to look almost like Hitler, complete with hard features and a moustache. Yet, Bhairon Singh's pronounced manliness is only a mask that hides his inner insecurity and waekness. On the other hand, Rohan comes out as a strong 18-year old, who his able to break free even in the face of trauma. Thus, Rohan and his father are etched out as direct foils of each other, not just emotionally, but physically as well.

This use of the visual to convey a character's emotions and state of mind, or to set the mood occurs elsewhere in the film too.

Most of the initial scenes of the film lay a lot of emphasis on Rohan lugging his heavy trunk after him - in his hostel room, up the stairs of his own home. This tells us that the boy does not have an easy life. He carries a lot of "baggage", which he will have to shed in the course of the film so that his own dreams can take flight later. So, he goes through a process of the proverbial trial by fire in this father's steel factory in order to "mould" himself into a strong and self-reliant individual.

Also, the house Rohan lives in has a barbed wire fencing around it, which is the focus of many shots in this film. This is an obvious reflection of the relationships that the people living inside the home share, owing to the father's belligerent attitude.

This kind of visual articulation must require some careful planning, which is why I said earlier that Udaan is thoughtful cinema. But mostly, if you are able to live the emotional experience of the film's protagonist along with her/him, you've got your paisa vasool and much more.