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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.)

Warriors of the Night

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

We name our daughters Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati; we worship the divine feminine power in the temples but oppress, repress and even attack the feminine power amidst us. That is the irony in the way India sees its women.

After the safety of the daylight fades, women are seen as easy prey by the predators of the night. We mark the nine nights of Navratri, the festival of the goddess, by celebrating the dedication and valour of nine real-life women who brave the challenges of the night to pursue their dreams. The series ends today.


The series ends today.


PART - 10


The Safety Strategy

“Don’t travel alone at night; travel in twos or keep someone informed,” says Komal Lath


Warriors of the Night

Komal Lath, Founder of Tute Consult, 39


Leading an all-women team means that Komal Lath, 39, has to look out for the safety of her colleagues when they are travelling or have events to attend. The founder of Tute Consult, an integrated marketing agency, the Mumbai-bred marketing professional started working at the age of 17 years and has worked with several brands over the past two decades. After gaining experience at various agencies, she started Tute in 2010 and has had brands like Carter, Priyanka Chopra, Pixi, Victoria’s Secret and Insight as among her high-profile clients. “The profession that I am in involves a lot of networking, socialising, meeting people, having to attend social gigs which does mean that in a quite a few cases, we have late evening and travel involved,” says Lath.


While she travels in her own car, she keeps a tab on her female colleagues when they are travelling home after a late evening. “I am not very open to my team members travelling by train late in the evening or even through dark alley streets. I insist they travel by uber-backed cabs which can be traced,” she says.

Recent cases of attacks on women have worried her even more. “Nothing seems safe anymore; not a school, not a college, not public transport for sure and not even private spaces,” says Lath. She confesses to waking up dreading some distressing news about attacks on women. It’s especially concerning for her because Lath, since the inception of her company, has led an all-girls team.


Like most women, she has her share of experiences with men trying to get too close for comfort in public spaces and even miscreants misbehaving. She recounts an incident in Delhi where she had taken her team for dinner to Hauz Khas after an event. A group of men started misbehaving with them. They went back to the restaurant and had to wait until the staff arranged taxis for them to return to their hotel. “What was even more scary is that the men looked like they came from decent families because of the way they were dressed. It’s scary and worrying,” says Lath who has offices in Mumbai and Delhi.


Women, she says, must be vigilant at all times. It’s essential to keep SOS numbers handy to be able to call trusted people in an emergency. “Don’t travel alone at night; travel in twos or keep someone informed so they can check on you,” she says. Lath recommends that women, when travelling at night, must take only cabs that can be traced at all times. “Keep someone informed about where you are off to,” she says. A final piece of advice she offers is to carry a big bag, a ‘weapon’ most women have used in crowded public areas such as railway stations, malls and markets. “You never know when you need to knock someone or their parts off.”

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