They say Basanti is a girl and yet she drives a tonga. So I reply that if Dhanno being a mare can pull a tonga, why can’t Basanti being a girl drive a tonga?

Hallelujah for Bollywood’s feminism. And surprise, it’s from action-packed Curry Western Sholay, which released 43 years ago on August 15 and still scorches. From friendship to feminism, action to acting, cinematography to soundtrack, Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay is a masterclass in mounting an evergreen mainstream movie. The only quibble? It’s overlong at 198 minutes runtime, snipped from the original 204 minutes. Still, go to Gabbar (Amjad Khan), the baddie who made sadism cool with quips as deadly as his gun, and you wouldn’t mind the length. Or to lovable rogues Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) and Veeru (Dharmendra), chatterbox Basanti (Hema Malini), armless Thakur (Sanjeev Kumar), frozen widow Radha (Jaya Bachchan). Every cameo is sharply etched. Even Basanti’s Dhanno or Jai’s coin have character. Even character artiste A.K. Hangal, the righteous Rahim Chacha, is immortalised with his line, “Itna sannata kyun hai bhai?”

Speaking of lines, Salim-Javed did the unthinkable, they made dialogue tracks sell like hotcakes on LPs and cassettes. Over these decades, the dialogues have been loved, mimicked, spoofed, made into memes, become shorthand for a culture. Kitne aadmi thhe, jo darr gaya, samjho marr gaya, tera kya hoga Kalia, hum aangrez ke zamane ke jailor hain…people good, bad or ugly in the film speak words that mean something, shunning florid dialogue-baazi. And, if R.D. Burman’s music was a chart-buster, his background score was standout genius. From hooves to harmonica, each sound added to the film’s texture.

In movies, the perfect alchemy of teamwork is rare magic. And often, mediocrity is easier to understand than greatness. No wonder audiences dubbed Sholay a flop at first.