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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.)

Reigning in Kolhapur

Kolhapur

Kolhapur has, for long, been a hub for education, culture, agriculture, temples and business. But the city has been equally renowned for the royal family that has ruled the region for centuries. The family traces its roots to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj with Kolhapur and Satara being the two seats that were descendants of the warrior king who enjoys a demi-god status across the state.


Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj II or Shahu II stepped out of the palace walls to contest the Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket and won the seat by a huge margin, reaffirming the affection that the electorate has for the royal family. Shahu II is the 12th generation of Maharashtra’s greatest warrior king and the great grandson of Rajashri Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj, the visionary king who is credited with widespread social reform in the region. In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, he advocated equality in caste and gender and promoted education and supported trade and agriculture. He had built dams and sanctuaries. The goodwill that the family enjoys is reflected in the way the people of Kolhapur support the present generation that is involved in politics and public life.


Chhatrapati Shahu II had little political experience until these elections while his sons Shambajiraje and Malojiraje have held political positions. Sambhajiraje first entered the Rajya Sabha in 2016 when he was nominated by the then President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. Unable to reach a consensus with the undivided Shiv Sena for a Rajya Sabha nomination in 2022, he formed the Swarajya Sanghathan the same year. He had famously sat on an indefinite hunger strike in 2022 at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan, along with his wife Sanyogeetaraje, demanding reservations for the Maratha community. In 2024, while he was keen on contesting the Lok Sabha elections, he withdrew from the fray after the Congress chose his father Shahu Maharaj II as its candidate, a name that was fully backed by the NCP (SP) and Uddhav Thackeray.


His younger son Malojiraje entered the Maharashtra legislative assembly in 2004 as a nominee of the Congress from Kolhapur. After he lost the 2009 elections, he took a backseat from electoral politics but led the party for the Kolhapur municipal corporation elections in 2021. His focus is on social activities and is currently the secretary of the Pune-based All India Chhatrapati Shivaji Memorial Society and is a member of the executive committee that runs the All India Football Federation.

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