The pull of Sholay and the promise of good fun drew a full house to the FD Block mandap, adjoining its puja pandal, on Ashtami night. The spoof of the 1975 Ramesh Sippy classic, which turns 50 this year, brought on stage characters, major and minor, who are the stuff of Bollywood legend — Thakur Baldev Singh to Basanti, Rahim chacha to jailor sahab...
The audience reacted every time a familiar punchline rolled off the tongue of any of the characters in costume. A loud response greeted every new character who walked in when his or her identity was revealed by a familiar dialogue. And soon, it became apparent that the scriptwriter had not limited himself to Sholay. Amitabh Bachchan spilled over from Sholay’s Jai to Don’s Vijay when in walked another figure, with the swaggering line “Don ka intezar toh gyarah mulkon ki police kar rahi hai” and was greeted with cheers. Jai’s partner Veeru too spilled over to his real-life avatar Dharmendra, as he threatened Gabbar, drawing from the recent film Jawan, asking him to speak to him, the father, before touching his son, Sunny Deol, quoting Shah Rukh Khan’s line, Bete ko haath lagane se pehle baap se baat kar.
Before that, Hrian Koondu, director Kaushik Koondu’s 12-year-old son, had tried to intervene in the Gabbar-Basanti exchange, saying: “Mere honewali ma ko aur mat satao. Yeh dhai kilo haath padh gaya toh uth nahin paoge, uth jaoge.” The line was a cross between real and reel life as Hema Malini went on to become Sunny’s stepmother and Sunny, who would have been of Hrian’s age during the making of Sholay, would himself mouth the dhai kilo ka haath dialogue much later in the film Damini. The audience signaled its appreciation with a lusty cheer.
Gabbar Singh looked his role both in physique and in gait and got the biggest applause at the curtain call. But none in the audience knew of the challenges he had to face to reach the stage till the director spoke up. “Once a streetdog in our block bit his shoe and tore it off his foot. He still attended the rehearsal and went home in Dum Dum barefoot,” Kaushik said, lauding Srijit Paul Chaudhury, the jamai of the block (married to FD Block girl Riddhi Mitra).
Three puja committee members, the director pointed out, had also pitched in as actors, balancing puja work and rehearsals. “Actually, there was no full rehearsal before we performed tonight. We rehearsed our parts for two or three days in bits and pieces,” admitted Saroj Kumar Roy Chowdhury, one of the three multitaskers. Roy Chowdhury, playing the amputated Thakur Baldev Singh, cut quite a figure with his hands tucked inside his full-sleeved panjabi. “I wear size 44. For the role, I had to get a size 46,” said Roy Chowdhury, who is a retired police officer like his stage persona.
If the show went off smoothly, it was partly because the cast included some veterans. Uma Bardhan, for instance, who played Basanti, acted in TV serials till 2022. “I could not refuse because it is Sholay,” she said, adding that she was acting in the block after two decades. The other reason was the dialogues were all pre-dubbed and recorded.
Kaushik, the director, said he came up with the script after reading about Sholay’s golden jubilee celebrations in Mumbai. He also thanked his wife Debarati for casting two important female figures — Bardhan as Basanti and Pampia Basu Nath as Basanti’s aunt.
Sudeshna Banerjee
