Ramesh Sippy's Sholay, the most successful cult Bollywood film, turned 35 this year. The film, which was released on August 15, 1975, opened to lukewarm response but soon the word of mouth spread and the rest was history. Sholay was Ramesh Sippy's third film and the most ambitious to date as it included a galaxy of stars.

Dharmendra and Hema Malini were one of the leading pairs of the 70s, Sanjeev Kumar was a versatile actor, Amitabh Bachchan was a rising star who had proved himself in Anand and Zanjeer and Jaya Bahaduri was an established actress. Also, there was the biggest sensation of all, Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh, the ferocious dacoit. The audiences lapped up Gabbar, imitating him, loving him and completely ignoring his mean streak once they stepped out of the cinema hall.
     
An entire generation of youth which has grown along with the film cannot help but recall the mesmerising effect the movie had cast on them during their growing years. The main plot is simple... a police officer loses his entire family and has his hands chopped off after he arrests a dreaded dacoit. He then hires two mercenaries to carry out his revenge, which they achieve but one of them dies in the process.

But, Sholay's mastery lay in its sub plots and minor characters, all of which were etched out with the greatest of detail and completeness, says Mahesh Sarang, a 35-year-old computer engineer who has lost count of the number of time he watched the movie in theatres when he was young and now too on television.

There isn't a single unnecessary line or shot, every thing is well connected and the intensity never fades, said V K Srivastava, a retired banker and a Sholay buff. Apart from hard-hitting dialogues, Sippy uses silence to devastating effect -- there is no background music when Gabbar guns down Thakur's entire family. The catchy script also catapulted writer duo Salim-Javed to fame in Bollywood.

The late Amjad Khan had once lamented that the movie's success had become a noose around his neck, and no matter how versatile his later performances were, movie goers always remarked by saying "Sholay jaisee batt nahi bani". Shot in 70 mm with stereophonic sound, the movie was the ultimate big screen experience of that period.

The movie set several trends in its aftermath. A spate of multi-starrers followed but none could match up to the film's standards, says 30-year-old Rakesh Gupta, another Sholay follower. Five years back when remakes were Bollywood's obsession, director Ram Gopal Varma attempted the impossible and ended up making 'Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag', which not only bombed in the box office but is now a benchmark of sorts for bad movies.

In this 'avatar' of Sholay, Bachchan did a role reversal and stepped into Amjad Khan's shoes by essaying the role of Gabbar.