50 years of Sholay: A love triangle that played crucial role in casting of the cult movie

Classic Bollywood film Sholay will be completing 50 years of its release this year. This Salim-Javed written flick has made a huge and lasting impression on Bollywood and its audience so much so that even after 50 years, people still cannot forget the iconic Jodi of Jai and Veeru or Basanti’s Dhannu or Gabbar Singh’s “Tera kya hoga kaaliya?” like dialogues.

While today everyone thinks the casting was simply perfect, there were times before the movies when both Dharmendra and Sanjeev Kumar were keen on doing other roles in Sholay. Dharmendra was impressed by the caricature of Thakur in the film and wanted to do this part, which later on was done by Sanjeev Kumar. On the other hand, Sanjeev Kumar himself thought that Gabbar Singh’s character was author-backed and was the most impressive among all and hence wanted to do it.

Incidentally, at that time, both Dharmendra and Sanjeev Kumar were in love with the leading lady of the movie, Hema Malini, who played the role of Basanti. The character of Basanti was paired with Veeru, and both of them had two romantic songs and even a few romantic sequences with each other. So when Dharmendra insisted to Ramesh Sippy that he would like to do the role of Thakur, the director refused to give him that role.

Dharmendra, Hema Malini in Sholay

Ramesh Sippy was well aware of the cold war between Dharmendra and Sanjeev Kumar to woo Hema Malini. So he made use of this love triangle and instead said to Dharmendra that if he did Thakur’s role, Veeru’s role would go to Sanjeev Kumar and then he would get to romance Dream Girl all through the movie and they might come closer.

Dharmendra was desperate to attract Hema Malini and hence he dropped his insistence on Thakur’s role and instead accepted to play Veeru and made him an unforgettable character.