The iconic film ‘
Sholay
‘, penned by the legendary writer duo Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, made a jubilant return to the big screen in Mumbai. To honour Salim-Javed’s enduring legacy, a special one-time screening of ‘Sholay’ was held on Saturday evening.
The special screening of ‘Sholay’ was received with an extraordinary response with the fans queuing up for the show at
Regal Cinema
in Colaba.
Javed Akhtar and Salim Khan were present at the special screening of the film and were overwhelmed with the audience response to Sholay which has completed 50 years.
At the event, Salim Khan didn’t speak much, Javed reacted witty and said, “Salim Saab badi lambi line hai iska matlab apni film hit hai.” He thanked Shivendra Singh of the
Film Heritage Foundation
for the extra ordinary work he is doing to save and restore films and classics.
The
screenwriter
and lyricist went on to speak about the journey of ‘Sholay’ and said, “We had no idea that it is going to be a hit you see when we started writing we didn’t know that the film would have a big cast but when the screenplay developed it donned upon us that we can have many stars init it was not planned to be a
multi starrer
perhaps that is the beauty of it.”
“It had an organic growth Sorry for the immodesty but I must say that there is any film in the world There are films like Godfather and ‘Gone with the Wind’, people who are confessors remember the characters but the list of the characters that are remembered after 50 years is Sholay there is an actor who got a complete career by saying pura 50 lakh actors who spoke only one line ‘Sardar maine aapka namak khaya hain’ even Mausi’s character I don’t remember any heroine mausi was remembered ever like the one in ‘sholay’. So there has been magic and that magic is not only created by us it is somewhere between us and the audience.” Akhtar added.
The screening drew about 80 percent repeat audience, with the rest being newer viewers, likely experiencing the film in a cinema hall for the first time. Some attendees had watched Sholay over 100 times, yet returned to the theater for another viewing of the iconic film. As the characters delivered their famous lines, the audience clapped and mouthed the dialogues along with them, filling the Regal cinema hall with echoes of nostalgia.
