'They have certainly not spoken to me or to Salimsaab.'
The new version of Sholay re-releases on December 12.
Titled Sholay - The Final Cut, it'll resurrect the all-time classic's original ending which has never been shown in movie theatres in the fifty years of the film's existence.
What has caused outrage is that one of the many iconic dialogues in Sholay has been altered in the new version. By whose permission? Nobody knows.
Certainly not Director Ramesh Sippy or the film's co-writer Javed Akhtar who was livid when informed about the altered catchline in Sholay: The Final Cut.
In the said dialogue Basanti (Hema Malini) says, 'Bade nishaanchi lagte ho (you seem quite a sharpshooter)' to Veeru (Dharmendra).
In reply, Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) jokes, 'Haan, James Bond ke pote hain yeh'.
In the Sholay - The Final Cut trailer, Jai's dialogue is 'Haan, Tatya Tope ke pote hain yeh'.
Fumes Javedsaab, "I was not aware of this! You mean to say, they have replaced James Bond with Tatya Tope? What does this mean? And this is just one dialogue. They might have similarly changed other famous lines. The audience won't accept this."
Javedsaab also wonders by whose consent this change has taken. "Have they spoken to the director?"
I inform Javedsaab that no one has spoken to Ramesh Sippy.
"They have certainly not spoken to me or to Salimsaab (Khan, the other co-writer). We are the writers of those lines that are recited even today by fans of Sholay."
"In fact the dialogues of Sholay were so popular that the music company Polydor (now Universal Music) had to release an album of dialogues which sold more than the songs album. No, you can't tamper with this.'
Photographs curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff
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