The second Sunday after Sholay's release, Amjad and Shehla had taken Shadaab to Juhu beach.
They were strolling leisurely when, to Shehla's shock, he suddenly picked up their son, grabbed her hand and pulled her along, urging her to run.
They raced towards their car and had just managed to get in and lock the doors when all hell broke loose.
Hundreds started banging on the car, shouting, 'Gabbar Singh bahar niklo!'
When Shehla Khan, Amjad Khan's wife, first saw Sholay on screen, she had to walk out.
To know why, scroll down to read an excerpt from Rediff Senior Contributor Roshmila Bhattacharya's book Bad Men: Bollywood's Iconic Villains and published by Rupa Publications India.
Shadaab suddenly got angry and started screaming...
Today, Amjad Khan's name is synonymous with Sholay even though before him, there was talk of other established actors like Prem Nath, Shatrughan Sinha, Danny Denzongpa and even Ranjeet being approached for the role of the now-famous dacoit, Gabbar Singh.
Danny himself has confirmed that he was the original choice for Gabbar and had given his nod to Sholay.
But by the time the film was ready to roll, the dates he had allotted to Ramesh Sippy clashed with those of Dharmatma.
Since Feroz Khan had already taken permission to shoot in Afghanistan, and he had allotted dates and taken money from the film's producer, director and actor, Danny, a principled actor, did not want to back out of Dharmatma at the last minute.
And that's how Amjad entered the picture.
Everyone who has seen the film comes out raving about his performance, but when his wife Shehla went to watch Sholay for the first time, she had to walk out.
She had gone to see the film with her mother-in-law and some friends.
She had to leave the film before the end and rush back home because her eldest son Shadaab, who was around two years old then, suddenly got angry by the hammering his father was taking on screen.
Shadaab started screaming at the top of his voice, 'Haramzaade, daddy ko mat maro!'
To Shehla's embarrassment, the child had picked up the word 'haramzaade' from his father's on-screen vocabulary without knowing what it even meant.
Amjad signed Sholay the day his first child was born
Gabbar is there in just nine scenes, but such was the impact of his performance that many believe Sholay is Amjad Khan's debut film.
But he appeared as a child actor in Nazneen (1951), a performance that went uncredited.
This was followed by Char Paise (1955), Ab Dilli Dur Nahin (1957), Maya (1961) and Hindustan Ki Kasam (1973).
He had even signed Charas (1976) before Sholay, but it released on May 24, 1976.
He also assisted K Asif on his ambitious colour film, Love and God, in which he is seen as an Abyssinian slave, sent by his mother to bring Qais home.
While he was shooting in Jaisalmer for the film, his father Jayant, cast as Laila's father, fell ill and was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx.
Amjad and Sheila's wedding on August 17, 1972 was rushed through because of his father's failing health.
Their first child Shadaab was born on September 20, 1973.
The same day, Amjad signed Sholay.
His father passed away two-and-a-half months before Sholay
When his son was two months old, Amjad boarded a flight to Bengaluru for the first schedule of the film.
It was a difficult shoot with his father's illness preying on his mind.
Jayant passed away on June 2, 1975, two-and-a-half months before his son's first blockbuster was released.
However, Sholay's Producer G P Sippy screened a rush print for Jayant to see ahead of the release.
He loved Amjad's performance as Gabbar Singh.
The film opened on August 15, 1975.
To scathing reviews.
A critic dismissed it as mere 'sound and fury' while a trade magazine wrote it off as 'smoke without fire'.
The box office collections too were disappointing.
Almost 50 years later, when I asked Shehla whether her husband was upset by the film's lukewarm opening, she negated the notion immediately, 'No, he came from a theatre background and had a different mindset. He wasn't scared by failure. If you fell, you just had to pick yourself up and start all over again.'
Exhibitors suggested they trim the film's length and change the end
The exhibitors who had been expecting Ramesh Sippy's big-budget, star-studded action-adventure to set the cash counters jingling.
When that didn't happen, they started to think of ways to salvage it and cut their losses.
At three-hours-10-minutes, the film was too long because of which they had to start early with a near-empty 9.00 am show, so that the last show would end by midnight.
Since it was released during the Emergency, government-regulated deadlines were enforced very strictly.
The way out, some theatre owners believed, was to cut some scenes and trim the film's length.
Some also thought that the end should be changed and Jai did not die because Amitabh Bachchan was a superstar after Zanjeer and Deewaar.
Hundreds started shouting, 'Gabbar Singh bahar niklo'
A few who didn't like Amjad's unusual voice even suggested his lines be dubbed.
Fortunately, before any of this could be implemented, collections picked up miraculously.
The second Sunday after its release, Amjad and Shehla had taken Shadaab to Juhu Beach.
They were strolling leisurely when, to Shehla's shock, he suddenly picked up their son, grabbed her hand and pulled her along, urging her to run.
They raced towards their car and had just managed to get in and lock the doors when all hell broke loose.
Hundreds started banging on the car, shouting, 'Gabbar Singh bahar niklo!'
The clamour left Shehla shell-shocked!
It was the first indication of the film and her husband's popularity.
Satyajit Ray cast Amjad after watching him in Sholay
After Sholay, there was no looking back for Amjad Khan.
He became a busy star and featured in around 50 films in the 1970s.
Some, like Hum Kisise Kum Naheen (1977, Saudagar Singh), Parvarish (1977, Mangal Singh), Ganga Ki Saugand (1978, Thakur Jashwant Singh), Des Pardes(1978, Bhoot Singh and Avtar Singh), Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978, Dilawar), Mr. Natwarlal (1979, Vikram Singh) and Suhaag (1979, Vikram Kapoor), were big hits.
Some disappeared without a trace.
Almost all of them had him playing a typical Bollywood villain.
The one exception was Shatranj Ke Khilari in 1977.
His performance as Wajid Ali Shah, the profligate, hedonistic nawab of Oudh, stands out.
Satyajit Ray cast Amjad after watching him in Sholay even though the nawab who is an artist, a poet, a chess player and a gentle soul has no similarity with Gabbar Singh.
He even delayed the shoot to give the actor time to recover after a near-fatal accident on October 15, 1976.
Shehla confirms this, sharing that Ray visited her husband in hospital when his condition was critical and urged Amjad emotionally to get well soon, saying that if he didn't do the film, he would shelve it.
Amjad Khan did recover from that accident, but passed away prematurely from a cardiac arrest on July 27, 1992.
But 50 years after he first exploded on screen as Gabbar Singh, one can still hear him saying, 'Yahaan se pachas pachas kos door gaon mein, jab bachcha raat ko rota hai, to maa kehti hai, beta so ja, so ja nahi toh Gabbar Singh aa jayega.'
Excerpted from Bad Men: Bollywood's Iconic Villains, by Roshmila Bhattacharya, with the kind permission of the publishers, Rupa Publications India.
