Aree Oh Sambha

Aree Oh Sambha​

( A Repost of 2007)

I had the pleasure of meeting Mac Mohan,a few days back at his residence in Versova,Mumbai.

I used some contacts,and met Mac,and he is a perfect gentleman.He has a lovely wife,and daughters,perfect hosts.He played Sambha in the all time Hit " Sholay".Here is what we talked about.

Casting of Sholay -

First choice was Sunil Dutt,news to me.He backed out bcs he did not want the great Gabbar to be killed by Sanjeev Kumar,but Ramesh Sippy was adamant,so he backed out.

Danny was the next choice,but he got delayed at Afghanistan shooting for Feroz Khan's "Dharatmatma",and since the phones those days were bad in Afghanistan,Ramesh Sippy was frustrated with not receiving a reply as to when he would return.

Amjad Khan, used to pester Ramesh Sippy to give him any role in the movie,even that of Sambha or Kalia,just to be in the movie.Ultimately out of frustration, he was given [COLOR=#009900 !important]a chance[/COLOR],and [COLOR=#009900 !important]the rest[/COLOR] is history.






Sambha,surprisingly had just 3 words in the movie. " Poore Pachas Hazaar".Nothing else was said by him in the movie.But Mac Mohan says,Gabbar made him famous by repeating his name so many times in the movie.

Mac's wife,said that Mac had to sit on the hot rocks for hours,on hi s haunches,and his bums got burnt,sitting days on end.

The first year the movie was shot twice.First in 35 mm and then in 70 mm.And each shot used to take a dozen retakes.bcs in those days there was just Maratha Mandir or maybe Minerva that had 70 mm,and he wanted to shoot in both versions.

When the foreign technicnas came, they advised Ramesh Sippy to shoot in just 35mm,and this will be blown up into 70 mm.Sippy did not beleive,so they stopped the shooting for a week,went to London,and there they developed the 35 mm shots,and blew it up to 70mm,and the results were excellent.And after that Sippy contined to shoot just in the 35mm format.Otherwise the movie would have taken another 2 yrs to shoot.


The movie had a lot of voilence,Sachin was orignally caught by kalia and Sambha and brought to Gabbar.He was roasted on the fire,and the charred body was sent on the horse back to hisvillage.The censors cut hat,so Gabbar was just shown killing some flies on his hand to signify that he had killed Sachin.


The movie - The length of the movie was 9 hours,and Ramesh Sippy wanted to be shown in 2 parts of 4 and half hours each.This was turned down,by Salim Javed,and censors helped too with a lot of cutting and censoring.


Mac said the movie was a flop intially,and Ramesh Sippy asked Sunit Dutt to dub Gabbar's Dialogue,but Sunil Dutt wanted Gabbar's permission.Everyone said that Amjad khan's dialogues was weak,but before they could do this, the movie was a hit,well thats history.

Mac Mohan -

still keeps coming in movies.The latest he said is " Bombay to Goa",where he plays the main character, who hides the gold,and the comedians go searching for it.
Gem of a guy,and i am glad i got to meet a gentleman,and i have his mobile,and hes promised to look me up when he comes there next month,as he is opening a teachign school there.

 

Dear GG,

Every since i started to blog, i wanted to meet these famous personalities to hear behind the scene stories. Mac was one of them, others being Viju Khote(Kalia of Sholay), Sudhir (Jaichand of Deewar), Russi Surti , cricketer, and a few ohters.Well Surti died, so did Sudhir and Mac. Viju is alive still.

Now i am going to mumbai and i plan to visit Ramesh Sippy, the director of Sholay, Seeta aur Geeta, heis a sindhi too.Maybe he will oblige me.HAHA

What does a retired person do , GG ?

Regards

kamal

 

Dear Quebec,

:rotfl