The Singing Cowboys: Sholay and the Significance of (Indian) Curry Westerns within Post-Colonial Narratives

Abstract

This paper examines Sholay (/Flames, dir. Ramesh Sippy, 1975), one of most commercially successful and ceaselessly popular Indian films, in order to comprehend the function of the popular within the political. The film was a self-conscious adaptation of Spaghetti-Westerns, especially Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968); moreover, a series of so-called Hindi B-movies like Mera Gaon Mera Desh (/My village, my country, dir. Raj Khosla, 1971) and Khote Sikkay (/Counterfeit coins, dir. Narendra Bedi, 1973), have seemingly inspired the making of Sholay. Therefore, this paper first refers to the historical significance of the film both within the realm of popular cultures, as well as within the chronicles of the political everyday. Secondly, it considers the visual style and the soundtrack, in order to make meaning of the multiple influences, as well as study the restructuring of a dominant Hollywood genre within Indian contexts. By presenting an overview of the Western influences this paper argues for the social import of the cult of Sholay. Briefly, the paper suggests that the film has the ability to tell us more about India’s cultural and historical transformations and thus, may be applied as a tool and a method through which one can read the burgeoning problems of a post-colonial state as well as its uneven growth and rambling conditions. In fact, its multiple excesses produce a framework by means of which one may consider the continuities and the breaks as well as the tussle over modernity within post-colonial contexts.