Showdown in Hinditown: Curry Westerns, Villains, and Frontier Justice

Drawing from genres as diverse as Hong Kong martial arts films and “spaghetti Westerns,” Sholay engages in a discourse that roots the audience in the experience of the other. Shot in the desert-like environment of Southern India, Sholay is a transnational epic that features narrative and stylistic elements that make it both a typical masala film and a genre bending innovation, and is the first example of the affectionately named “curry Western.” The story of a village imperiled by a band of ruthless bandits who seek the protection from a band of disreputable warriors has been recycled in numerous formats including the Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai, with Sholay marking just one installment in a series of revenge films. The film serves as a backdrop for conversations about brotherly love, frontier justice, and the hero/villain dichotomy.

Sholay utilized techniques considered cutting edge at the time, including quick cuts back and forth between shots, as witnessed in the opening battle scene on the train where Veeru, Jai, and the Thakur fight off a band of thugs. Later, freeze frame and slow motion shots are used to heighten the melodrama of the deaths of the Thakur’s family at the hands of Gabbar and his henchmen. Unlike a lot of traditional Hindi films which emphasize static shots and close ups Sholay utilizes a number of tracking shots and inventive angles, including a number of “bottom up” shots where the camera is position on the ground facing upward at the actor. Sholay often blends traditional Indian instrumentation with Western style music. Veeru and Jai are depicted playing the harmonica, an instrument utilized time and again in Hollywood Westerns, but also make time for the typical song and dance numbers typical in Hindi “masala” films.

The theme of frontier justice is an important motif in Hollywood Western films, and the same is true for Sholay. When the Thakur first catches Gabbar Singh he grips Gabbar’s head in a vice and says, “They aren’t arms, they’re a noose.” This bit of gritty dialogue harkens to the use of lynch squads as a form of frontier justice, and serves as a manifestation of the power of the common man. Like many tortured heroes popular in Western films the Thakur is a damaged person out for revenge, and his sense of morality is shaped by the violence that his been committed against him and his people. “In a reversal of the usual hostile imagery, the ‘feudal’ landlord too is shown as fundamentally good, able to act where the state cannot.” (Metcalfe, 2012) The Thakur justifies hiring Veeru and Jai to deal with Gabbar by saying, “Only because iron will deal with iron,” meaning that only strength (meaning violence) can counter strength, and in Sholay the strongest characters are those with the greatest martial talent. When the Thakur later confronts Gabbar after Veeru effectively neuters Gabbar of his masculine power by decimating his band of thugs the Thakur cripples Gabbar’s arms by crushing them under his feet. This act of retribution honors the “eye for an eye” message that is propagated up till the end of the film when the Thakur’s vengeance is derailed by timely arrival of the police, whose appearance enforces that notion that law and order is ultimately the realm of the state. Yet the film also undercuts the effectiveness of traditional forms of law and order. The jailer who pompously lords over Veeru and Jai while they are in prison is depicted as a ridiculously ineffective character whose appearance is clearly influenced by Charlie Chaplin’s depiction of Hitler in The Great Dictator.  Simultaneously a metaphor for British imperialism and national law the jailer serves a laughable foil to the more gritty and effective methods of justice dealt out by Veeru and Jai against Gabbar Singh and his evil henchmen.

Gabbar Singh is also as much a creation of the Western film genre in Hollywood as he is a distinct product of Hindi cinema. One of Hindi cinema’s first true super villains, Gabbar is a hyperbolic human incarnation of sadism and greed, and operates as a dual representation of Western violence and mythological villainy. “Gabbar Singh, by his creator’s own admission, was modeled on the psychotic, laughing villain, Indio, in Leone’s For A Few Dollars More. Yet he enjoys the kind of uncontested authority over his men that Indio can only fantasize about. More evocative is the way that both men are situated in a moral universe where greed and revenge, violence and betrayal are the primary referents.” (Banerjea, 2005) Throughout the film Gabbar repeatedly commits the gravest moral taboos, almost none of which is more heinous that the betrayal of his own men. Gabbar proves his disloyalty by shooting three of his men after sparing their lives in a miraculous game of Russian roulette, and the enigma of his character only grows more complex, because his true motivations other than sadistic pleasure are never revealed. “By the end of the film the audience is none the wiser about the substantive location of Gabbar’s desire. He has no social history, no personal biography beyond the stylistic markers of criminal excess: the howling, the tilt of the head, the mad, rolling eyes, that studded belt.” (Banerjea, 2005)