By Bijay Singh, Ramanagaram, Karnataka
When the film Sholay’s director Ramesh Sippy chose a then small village of Ramanagaram on the Bangalore-Mysore highway for telling his story, little would he have imagined that the Karnataka government would make earnings out of people flocking for “pilgrimage” to the film he made!!!
The film was released on August 15, 1975, and fifty years hence Karnataka government is charging Rs 25 per head to visit the spot where most of the film was shot — at the den of Gabbar (Amjad Khan), and the boulders on which he enters the film or the rocks with glass splinters on which Hema (Basanti) Malini is forced to dance and sundry other boulders that became immortalised due to the cult classic that the film became.
Today, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, belonging to the film Sholay at the spot. Thick wild vegetation, thorny bushes, rocky terrain, and boulders are the only ‘actors’ one can see from the film. Often one can see shepherds tending to their animals and taking sheep to graze.
But still, here are many people who come to see the place where the film was shot.
On any day, between 50-60 people buy tickets to see this area,” the ticket seller at the counter at the foothills of the hilly terrain told News24. “On weekends, the number of visitors and tourists (most of them diehard Sholay fans) crosses the 250 mark,” he said, tearing off a ticket from his booklet. The ticket is for entering the country’s only Vulture sanctuary located in the area, and without purchasing this one cannot enter the locations where the film was shot.
It took two years to erect the set, and later, filming for the movie started in 1973. After the completion of the film, the entire set of Ramgarh was dismantled.
Today, there is no telltale sign of the film’s making here other than the very, very familiar boulders and forested hilly terrain. One has to trek up to the Gabbar’s den.
Today, about 10 km from Ramanagaram railway station, near State Highway 3, lies the base of the “Ramadevara Betta Hills,” the main filming site.
On a working day, there were around noon, there were some four to five persons and a family that was paying its “homage” to Sholay. The mood of the people and their sentiments are the real treasure that any filmmaker could cherish, even after 50 years of its making.
The place surely holds a magnetic pull for its fans.
Twenty-four-year-old Daman Sahu from Sambalpur in Odisha had come to Karnataka in search of work. The moment he got an assignment that would take him away from Bangalore, he came to Ramanagaram – Ramgarh – for a Darshan of the place that he saw in the film. “Now I can happily go to Channapatna for the job,” he said in conversation with News24.
M Abrar, a 25-year-old IT professional from Bengaluru, came with his friends, said he liked the entire film, the story and the scenes and dialogues of the film, but what he liked most was the bond of friendship that was shown between Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachan (Veeru and Jai). After spending some time, “My friends and I will go trekking from here,” he said.
Narayana Gowda, an autorickshaw driver from nearby Sugunahalli, recalled that during the shooting he would secretly come to watch without telling his family and even help the crew.
Kiran Kumar, a young priest of the Shri Hanuman temple nestled in the hilly region, said people visit both for trekking and to shoot reels reenacting Sholay’s famous dialogues. “People here recite Gabbar and Veeru’s lines more than they sing devotional hymns,” he laughed.
Gabbar is, of course, the most favourite of the people who come here, Narayana says, as he makes four to five trips a day ferrying people from the bus stand, some two to three kms away.
According to a Ramanagaram villager, Satyanarayan (now very elderly), “during filming, Amjad Khan performed with such confidence it seemed as if he had been born and raised among dacoits. On screen, his presence, voice delivery, laughter, and gait transformed completely into that of a real outlaw. No other “Gabbar” can ever match him, was his considered opinion, scoffing at the other film in which Amitabh Bachan plays the character of Gabbar Singh.
Another auto driver, Venkatesh, thanks the film for bringing in tourists.. “Thanks to Sholay, more people come here, boosting our earnings,” he said.
Eighty-five-year-old Satyanarayan Swami recalled, “Many villagers participated in the film and played bit roles and were part of crowd scenes. Many earned some extra money, and a few later found work in the film industry. “Meeting the actors was not very difficult,” he said when asked if they could meet the big stars.
Many people in the village, even today, get together and watch the film to relive their memories, and they have been doing this for ages. “No, we don’t get bored with it, and there can be no other Sholay made,” is the firm declaration of the 85-year-old Swami.
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