Hema Malini, who played the eponymous Basanti tangewaali in Sholay, answers this question and more as the film completed 30 years on August 16

Hema Malini’s performance as Basanti in Sholay was so impressive that people still remember the name of her horse—Dhanno! When we tell her that Sholay has completed 30 years she looks surprised. “Kya baat hai… itne saal ho gaye?” she says.

The actress is back from London after completing Ravi Chopra’s Baabul with Amitabh Bachchan. “Frankly, at the time, nobody knew that Sholay would be a blockbuster, or else we would have written a diary on the sets,” she smiles. “I was surprised when director Ramesh Sippy offered me the role. I had never heard of a tangewaali before I read the script of Sholay. I mean, you can see tangewaalas… but have you ever seen a tangewaali?”

Every day, before shooting, the unit members would train Hema to handle Dhanno. “It was not an easy job. I had to ride the carriage and also rattle my dialogues at the same time,” says Hema , who was once even asked to mouth 340 words in one take.

“Rameshji wanted to shoot the dance sequence of Jab Tak Hai Jaan during May. And the weather in Bangalore, where we were shooting, was extreme. The days were scorching hot and it would rain at night. Every morning, the unit members used blowers to dry the rocks. I had insisted that the sequence be shot in January, but Rameshji wanted to see the pain in my face. For instance, I did Jab Tak Hai Jaan barefooted, and as soon as the shot was over, the spot boys splashed water on my feet.”

Hema recalls another incident. During the shoot of the song Koi Haseena Jab, Hema and Dharmendra were all set to give the shot where a local train passes the tanga. However, when Ramesh realised that Hema wasn’t wearing any flowers in her hair, he stalled the filming. They had to shoot exactly at 7:50 am as the local train would pass only at the time. Ramesh lost his cool and asked someone to get the flowers. And they got the flowers just a few minutes before the train arrived. “As soon as my hairdresser tucked the flower in my hair, we took the shot,” recollects Hema


Director’s Take

“I am bored of Sholay and have nothing new to talk about it. I've been getting calls from the media since last two days. I refuse to talk about the film as I have spoken a lot about it in the past 30 years. We had even released a book on Sholay covering pre-production, post-production, and other news about the film. I would rather talk about my new projects than my past work. And I have nothing to say about Ram Gopal Verma’s remake of Sholay.”

source:mumbaimirror