I was just a baby when Sholay was released in 1975. Luckily it ran in all cities for the next decade or so. I must be 8/9 when I first watched Sholay and man did it make an impact on me? If I have to explain "how I felt walking out of the theater after watching it" in one word, that word would be "stunned". I was completely stunned, in awe, clean bowled as they call it. I don't think I spoke to anybody for an hour or so after.

The first thing that really haunted me & still does is the background score of the movie. Now, I must confess, I have not watched Sholay in the last 20 years or so but two pieces still haunt me. One is the background score of every Gabbar shot. And the second is when Gabbar kills Thakur's enire family. 40 years since and I doubt if anything comes close. I will just call it the genius of R. D. Burman.

For me Sholay is the pinnacle of everything coming together so perfectly - cast, music, story, dialogues, direction, editing, everything. There is not a single wasted dialog. Humor is just about right, both in quantity and quality. Jailer, Soorma Bhopali, Masi-ji have very short but perfectly justified roles. Basanti & Veeru come in at the right time to diffuse the anxiety of the previous intense shots.

"Kitne aadmi the" is probably the most popular dialog of Indian cinema. And Gabbar's entry might be the most favoured or hated single shot of cinema. But for me there were two other pieces above Gabbar's famous "Jo dar gaya samjho mar gaya". First one is when Gabbar kills Thakur's family. The music, the horse steps, the creaking swing and the booming gun shots just creep on you. And then comes the finale - the grand son. There is no blood, nothing grotesque about it. Just a barrel and a terrified face. The exact moment when you just want to close your eyes, comes the braking of a steam engine - the diffusion. Just perfect! One more such brief moment is when a Ramgadh-wasi (Sachin) is travelling to the city & the dakus catch him. Gabbar just kills a fly on his hand! And you start hating him from your gut.

I have heard that there were no takers for this Salim-Javed master piece before Ramesh Sippy ventured in it. Salim-Javed are the backbone of this classic IMO. "Kyun thakur - Abhi tak zinda ho?", "Tumhara naam kya hai - Basanti?", "Bahut kateli nachaniya hai" - each one is a nagina in itself!

Last but not the least what can I say about Jay-Veeru. Many pairs performed before and after Sholay but none is as epic as Jay-Veeru, the ying-yang. I loved their clothes, dialogs, songs, acting, friendship, hatred and even death (never was I so devastated at the end of a movie). Amitabh playing the mouth organ on those blue nights watching Jaya Bhaduri feels so surreal. And his death in the end to Kishore Kumar's slow version of "Teri jeet meri jeet ..." made such a severe impact on me at an age when freindship was everything to me!

This is such a favorite topic of mine that I can just keep typing! Let me finish up with some some real life Sholay facts:
- Dharmendra apparently paid the spot boys to purposely spoil some shots so that he can spend more time with Hema Malini
- Amitabh & Jaya Bhaduri had married just before the screening started & in fact Jaya Bhaduri was pregnant during the shooting
- Danny was orginally casted for Thakur but he rejected it and Sanjeev Kumar got casted
- A new 3D version of Sholay came out in 2014
- Audio cassettes of Sholay ran in our house (by my elder brother) every night for about 2 years. Every night - no kidding

In my honest opinion, it is a defining movie in Indian cinema. Of course there could be some "Mughl-E-Azam", "Do ankhein bara hath", "Guide" or "Awara" fans who would object. But I did not live those moments and cannot comment on those.

But you can comment on your Sholay thoughts. We would love to hear from you all below ...