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By:

Rajeev Puri

24 October 2024 at 5:11:37 am

Before Sholay, there was Mera Gaon Mera Desh

When the comedian and television host Kapil Sharma recently welcomed the veteran screenwriter Salim Khan onto his show, he made a striking claim. India, he joked, has a national bird and a national animal; it ought also to have a national film. That film, he suggested, would surely be Sholay. Few would quarrel with the sentiment. Released in 1975 and directed by Ramesh Sippy,  Sholay  has long been treated as the Everest of Hindi popular cinema -quoted endlessly, revisited by generations and...

Before Sholay, there was Mera Gaon Mera Desh

When the comedian and television host Kapil Sharma recently welcomed the veteran screenwriter Salim Khan onto his show, he made a striking claim. India, he joked, has a national bird and a national animal; it ought also to have a national film. That film, he suggested, would surely be Sholay. Few would quarrel with the sentiment. Released in 1975 and directed by Ramesh Sippy,  Sholay  has long been treated as the Everest of Hindi popular cinema -quoted endlessly, revisited by generations and dissected by critics. In 2025, the film marked its 50th anniversary, and the release of a digitally restored, uncut version introduced the classic to a new generation of viewers who discovered that its mixture of revenge drama, western pastiche and buddy comedy remains curiously durable. The film’s influences have been debated almost as much as its dialogues – from scenes taken by the Spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, particularly ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ (1968) or to the narrative architecture of ‘Seven Samurai’ (1954) by Akira Kurosawa. Others note echoes of earlier Hindi films about bandits and frontier justice, such as ‘Khotey Sikke’ (1973) starring Feroz Khan. Yet, rewatching ‘Mera Gaon Mera Desh,’ directed by Raj Khosla, one cannot help noticing how many of the narrative bones of  Sholay  appear to have been assembled there first. Released in 1971,  Mera Gaon Mera Desh  was a major hit at the box office, notable for holding its own in a year dominated by the near-hysterical popularity of Rajesh Khanna. The thematic framework of the two films is strikingly similar. In  Sholay , the retired policeman Thakur Baldev Singh recruits two petty criminals - Jai and Veeru - to help him avenge the terror inflicted upon his village by the bandit Gabbar Singh. In  Mera Gaon Mera Desh , the set-up is not very different. A retired soldier, Jaswant Singh, seeks to protect his village from a ruthless dacoit and enlists the help of a small-time crook named Ajit. Even the villain’s name seems to echo across the two films. In Khosla’s drama, the marauding bandit played by Vinod Khanna is scene-stealing performance is called Jabbar Singh. In  Sholay , the outlaw who would become one of Indian cinema’s most memorable antagonists was Gabbar Singh. There is an additional irony in the casting. In  Mera Gaon Mera Desh , the retired soldier Jaswant Singh is played by Jayant - the real-life father of Amjad Khan, who would later immortalise Gabbar Singh in  Sholay . The connective tissue between the two films becomes even clearer in the presence of Dharmendra. In Khosla’s film he plays Ajit, a charming rogue who gradually redeems himself while defending the village. Four years later, Dharmendra returned in  Sholay  as Veeru, a similarly exuberant petty criminal whose courage and irrepressible humour make him one half of Hindi cinema’s most beloved buddy duo alongside Amitabh Bachchan as Jai. Certain visual motifs also appear to have travelled intact. In Khosla’s film, Ajit finds himself bound in ropes in the bandit’s den during a dramatic musical sequence. A similar image appears in  Sholay , where Veeru is tied up before Gabbar Singh while Basanti performs the now famous song ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan.’ Other echoes are subtler but just as suggestive. Ajit’s pursuit of the village belle Anju, played by Asha Parekh, anticipates Veeru’s boisterous attempts to woo Basanti, portrayed by Hema Malini. Scenes in which Ajit teaches Anju to shoot recall the flirtatious gun-training sequence between Veeru and Basanti that became one of  Sholay ’s most cherished moments. Even the famous coin motif has a precedent. Ajit frequently tosses a coin to make decisions - a flourish that would later appear in  Sholay , where Jai’s coin toss becomes a running gag. Perhaps most intriguingly, the endings of the two films converge in their original form. In  Mera Gaon Mera Desh , the villain is ultimately killed by the hero. The uncut version of  Sholay  reportedly ended in a similar fashion, with Gabbar Singh meeting his death at the hands of Thakur Baldev Singh. However, censors altered the climax before the film’s 1975 release, requiring that Gabbar be handed over to the police instead. All this does not diminish  Sholay . Rather, it highlights the alchemy through which cinema evolves. The scriptwriting duo Salim–Javed took familiar ingredients and expanded them into a grander narrative populated by unforgettable characters and stylised action. On the 55 th  anniversary of  Mera Gaon Mera Desh , Raj Khosla’s rugged western deserves a renewed glance as the sturdy foundation on which a legend called  Sholay  was built. (The author is a political commentator and a global affairs observer. Views personal.)

Luxury home sales drop, budget houses boom

Mumbai: The city’s realty sector is worried as the demand for luxury homes dropped drastically against a sharp hike in the sales of budget category houses, in the first half of 2025, latest industry data has revealed.

 

As per data released by ANAROCK Group, the inventory of unsold deluxe homes – in the Rs. 2.50-crore plus range – has shot up by 36 pc in Q1, first time since 2022.

 

The figures are startling – 8,420 units remain unsold in Mumbai compared with 6,180 units during the Q1 2024-end – a first since 2022 when unsold luxury housing stock saw an annual increase.

 

In contrast, the sales of various categories of budget houses, sub-2.50 cr, notched a significant increase of 6 pc from Jan-May 2025 – a record 64,461 properties registered, compared with 60,818 during the same period in 2024.

 

ANAROCK Group Chairman Anuj Puri attributed it to several factors including considerable new unit additions in the luxury sector - 16,480 (2024) plus 5,294 (2025).

 

“While demand for these homes continues to remain strong, skyrocketing prices and headwinds like global economic slowdown have hit the sales of these homes in the past one year,” Puri pointed out.

 

He added that in Q1-2023 high-end unsold stocks in Mumbai declined by 29 pc – from 18,340 units (Q1 2022-end) to nearly 13,040 units (Q1 2023-end), and by Q1 2024-end, the unsold luxury stocks fell by a significant 53 pc to around 6,180 units.

 

Adding colour to a gloomy scenario is the boom in the budget homes category which notched an unprecedented 64,461 property registrations in Mumbai from Jan-May, 2025 – against 60,818 registrations during the same period in 2024, as per data of the Inspector General of Registrations.

 

The average ticket prices of these properties stood at Rs 1.59 cr, the highest since 2019, and in 2021, the average prices of properties sold was the lowest at Rs 1.02 crore. The government mopped up a handsome Rs 5,695 crore from Jan-May 2025 (against Rs. 4,860 in Jan-May 2024), a 17 pc annual jump.

 

ANAROCK research found that in Q1-2025, as many as 21,930 units were sold in Mumbai which was 28 pc lower than the sales witnessed in Q1-2024.

 

A key factor behind the surge in property registrations from Jan-May 2025 is credited to the 3.9 pc hike in Maharashtra's ready reckoner rates for FY26.

 

Real estate experts-speak:

Realtor Nitin Sunderji Shah, Partner, Shri Om Sai Developers said that luxury home buyers prefer mega-housing complexes with extra amenities like swimming pool-club houses, etc.

 

“They shun stand-alone buildings, especially if they are the redeveloped category owing to ‘status disparity’. Some discerning buyers prefer row-houses, independent bungalows in large complexes, so many luxury units are languishing,” Shah told The Perfect Voice.

 

Realty consultant R. K. Kamble said that besides the usual factors, people have no savings for property investments, the hiccups witnessed in the stock markets, the prices of gold, the current political situation, etc., which weigh on public sentiments, particularly in the middle-upper segments.

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