Climax of Sholay Where Thakur kills Gabbar was changed!

Maker of the historic film Sholay, Ramesh Sippy, 66, has said that he is not yet happy with the end of the film. The original end that he shot for the film was rejected by the Censor Board as they found it too violent for the audience. To make them satisfied Sippy had to re-shoot the whole sequence again as per the demand of censor board. Sippy was speaking at Centenary Film Festival.

Speaking of those days of emergency when Censor Boards rules and regulations were very strict and filmmakers had to follow the stern guidelines Sippy further added that he had to convince the Board members about his idea of violence and its picturization in his film. The hands of film makers were tied. They could almost nothing. Censor Board had a very strong objection on the violence shown in the movie. Sippy tried to convince the board members that the movie doesn’t feature much of a bloodshed or gore.

The violence in the movie is symbolic. It is in the context of the movie. Even the scenes where Thakur’s hands are sliced off are not shown in the movie. The scenes were not even written leave aside shooting. The impact of the scene was produced with the shawl falling off. The cutting of the hands was suggestive and the actual scene was never shown as the makers ever felt it was necessary. The board however objected to the impact that it would leave on peoples mind.

Board did not stop at this point. They further went on to take a strong objection on the climax of the film where Thakur was shown fighting with Gabbar and killing him in the end. According to Board, it was very ruthless and violent of the ending. So they asked Sippy to change the climax and re-shoot the ending. Sippy had to argue on this point with them but in vain.

Finally he had to call back Sanjeev Kumar who was in Russia at that time attending a film festival. They had to go back to Bangalore where the actual set of the film was erected and they re-shoot the entire sequence where Thakur didn’t actually kills Gabbar at the end but Police intervene and stop him to take law in his hands.