How is Ramu's 'Sholay' different from Ramesh's?
MUMBAI: The way things are going, Sascha Sippy has nothing to worry about. Ram Gopal Varma's "Sholay" is going to be very different from the way Ramesh Sippy conceived and made it 30 years ago.
For one, the songs and the song situations are going to be very different. Except for the "Mehbooba" track, Ramu is revamping the entire music score and therefore the entire song situations. Hence, there will be no Holi song before Gabbar and gang's attack on the village, and no Basanti dancing on glass for Gabbar in his hideout.
"In fact," reveals Ramu, "I decided to retain 'Mehbooba' only because I liked the track so much that I had to have it in my film. All the other songs in my film are originals. And for the first time in my cinema I've got a group of composers from Bappi Lahiri to Ganesh Hegde to Amar Mohile doing one song each. Every composer has been taken into confidence and I've asked them to prepare one track each.
"See, all the songs in 'Sholay' were terribly situational. But my situations will be totally different. I want every composer to come up with his best possible music."
Vishal Bharadwaj has also been invited to do one moody bluesy track. "He'll be composing a very different kind of song, something neither he nor I have done before. Besides the ones I've mentioned, there will be two other composers to complete the score. I think it's very old-fashioned to have one music director do an entire score. Even in Hollywood a lot of musicians contribute to a movie soundtrack."
Ramu hopes to get the music in place by the end of the month. It's not just the songs that take "Sholay" into another territory. The characters and their inter-relationships too take it into another orbit.
Ramu provides a vivid peek.
"The two female protagonists are two different people from the way they were conceived in the earlier film. Also the bum chum relationship between my Jai (Prashant Raj) and my Veeru (Ajay Devgan) has been entirely changed. They're no longer pals, but more like the mentor and his pupil. Ajay and Prashant share a guru-shishya relationship."
That makes sense, considering the age difference between the two actors. "No. From the start, my Veeru and Jai were conceived as a senior and junior member of the partnership."
Ramu has been shooting with his Veeru and Jai and he's all praise for his new discovery. "Prashant Raj is superb. Getting him to play Jai has been the best decision I made on 'Sholay' after getting Mr Bachchan to play Gabbar."
Other changes in Ramu's "Sholay":
Radha, the widow, wears black instead of white.
Basanti rides an autorickhaw instead of a tonga.
Samba (Sushant Singh) is Gabbar's right-hand man and confidant and not a sidekick.
The cop who initially introduces the Thakur to Veeru and Jai has a much larger role to play.