Ramesh Sippy shares how the Emergency impacted the shows of ‘Sholay’, its collections

The director spoke about the film’s runtime and how it was caught between the quagmire of its box office collections and audience demand

Director Ramesh Sippy has shared an interesting anecdote about the legendary Bollywood film ‘Sholay’.

The director spoke about the film’s runtime and how it was caught between the quagmire of its box office collections and audience demand.

‘Sholay’ was released during the politically turbulent times of the Emergency in India imposed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Speaking on the chat show ‘The Invincibles’, Ramesh said that during the Emergency, night shows of films had to conclude by 12 a.m. If a film had to play four shows, then the first show had to start as early as 9 a.m.

Host Arbaaz pointed out that the film’s length was affecting its collections.

Responding to this, Ramesh said: “We were told to chop out 20 minutes from the film, but we were perplexed as to what can be cut from the film. We did decrease the length of the film by 20 minutes as we were told to remove the comedy tracks of Asrani and Jagdeep."

The film was thus edited down to a runtime of 180 minutes. However, another issue arose as audiences were not happy with the alterations.

Ramesh said: “There were some people in the audience who had seen these tracks in earlier shows."

“When they discussed it with their friends, and the latter didn’t see it in new shows, they started demanding those scenes," he added.

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