Fifty years on, Sholay’s triumphs and flaws echo through Hindi cinema and Indian society

“The moment you utter the ‘Sh’ of Sholay, every single scene from the film rolls out before your eyes,” Dharmendra, one of the stars of the cult Hindi classic, told me in an interview for a television show marking the 35th anniversary of its release. Hema Malini, his co-star, added in mock exasperation that wherever she went, people had just one request, “‘recite that line from Sholay’– as if we have not done any other except that Sholay film.”

Fifteen years since that interview was telecast in 2010, Sholay continues to captivate Hindi film fans. Half a century after it arrived in theatres on 15 August – India’s Independence Day – in 1975, and went on to become a record-breaking box-office hit, Sholay’s dialogues, songs and characters (including some who appeared for just a few seconds or minutes), remain seared into the public consciousness, and are cited even today in conversations, films, speeches, slogans and advertisements. In that sense, Sholay is to the Hindi film industry what The Godfather trilogy and the original Star Wars trilogy are to Hollywood. Other films have surpassed Sholay’s box-office collections, but few have managed to match the magnitude and longevity of its influence on Indian popular culture.