Would you have liked if Jai wouldn’t have died in Veeru’s arms at the end of Sholay? Well, director Ramesh Sippy revealed that this was the actual ending of the iconic film Sholay but because Censor Board did not accept it, he had to change it.
When an audience member asked Sippy about his views on censorship in India, the filmmaker spoke about his own experiences with the Censor Board, before Sholay was released during the Emergency in August 1975.
“I had shot a different ending for Sholay, where Gabbar is killed by Thakur. But they (the Censor Board), didn’t allow that. They were not happy about Thakur killing Gabbar with his feet. I was also caught in a sticky situation; how else would Thakur kill him? He couldn’t have used a gun since he had no arms. They were also unhappy about too much violence, they said ‘you have to change the end’. I wasn’t happy, but I did that,” he shared.
Sholay broke all records and won 60 golden jubilees across India, and was the first film in India to celebrate a silver jubilee at over 100 theatres. Sholay was the Indian film with the longest theatrical run until Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) broke its record of 286 weeks in 2001.
