What comes to your mind when someone mentions Sholay? Is it Salim-Javed’s iconic dialogues, the gripping horse-riding and train-robbery action sequences, or Gabbar Singh’s unforgettable mannerisms, or RD Burman’s timeless music? For many, it’s all of the above.
This iconic movie has entertained generations since its release on August 15, 1975. From silver screen to Internet memes, Sholay’s 50-year journey has transcended various mediums.
Sholay was not an instant hit, and it struggled for the first few days. The strong word-of-mouth publicity helped it attain cult status.
Gabbar as brand ambassador
The generation that saw it on the screen for the first time in 1975 was in for a surprise in a few months after that when the movie’s iconic villain Gabbar Singh (played by the late Amjad Khan) became the brand ambassador for a children’s biscuit brand. At a time when movie stars were not much of a preference for a brand ambassador, a person who played a villain became the choice to showcase the brand for Britannia’s Glusose-D. Mac Mohan and Viju Khote, who were part of Gabbar’s team in the movie, were also cast in this commercial.
In one of the media interviews, Kailash Surendranath, who directed the advertisement, said the ad was played on the big screen, as television had just made its presence in the market then. With more than 500 prints, the commercial ran in theatres across India.
In 2016, Google India used Sholay as the main theme for a commercial to highlight its search features. “Kitney aadmi thay” (how many people were there), the iconic dialogue of the movie, was prominently used in this ad.
Either the characters or the dialogues of the movie have been making their presence felt in advertisements over the last five decades. While some used Sholay-themed animation to push their brands, some others recreated sequences from the movie.
Music
RD Burman’s music was one of the highlights of the movie. Some media reports said that nearly five lakh vinyl records of the movie’s songs and dialogues were sold at that time. Some songs went on to top the popular radio programme Binaca Geetmala, hosted by the veteran announcer the late Ameen Sayani in 1975. Now you get to hear the songs on most music streaming apps and on YouTube.
On Doordarshan
The advent of television in India and the entry of satellite television channels opened another avenue for the screening of this movie in the 1990s. In an interview with Bollywood Hungama in 2023, Jayantilal Gada of PEN India, who had taken initiative to air it on television, said it was aired on Doordarshan for the first time on January 26, 1995. He claimed that it had one of the highest TRP ratings on Doordarshan, second only to Ramayan and Mahabharat serials. He said in the interview that Sholay’s telecast went on for five hours, as a lot of ads had to be inserted between the movie back then. Later, other satellite channels also telecast the movie. The total length of the movie was around three hours and 15 minutes.
The movie is available for free watch on YouTube also. The latest available figures show more than six crore views on the NH Studioz YouTube channel. The movie is also available on OTT platforms.
In memes
Scenes from Sholay are quite sought after material for Internet meme users. During the lockdown period in 2020, Sholay’s director Ramesh Sippy took to X to post a meme with a picture of Gabbar’s sidekick Samba sitting on a stone in his den. The meme read: “SAMBHA – Practising social distancing since 1975.”
In fact, industrialist Anand Mahindra asked X users to create memes when one of the users tweaked the famous dialogue to “Yeh Thar mujhe dede Thakur” (give me this Thar, Thakur) in August 2020.
When a user replaced Thakur (played by the late Sanjeev Kumar) with Anand Mahindra and Gabbar in the background, Mahindra said: “This one goes into my personal archives…Aur Gabbar, main aa raha hoon apne haath wapas lene…”.
Zomato used Hutch Telecom’s famous tagline “You and I… In this beautiful world” to welcome debut of its competitor Swiggy on the stock market in November last year. Replying to this, Swiggy said: “it’s giving Jai and Veeru.”
Most dialogues of the movie have been part of meme culture, based on the situation.
Even after 50 years, Sholay remains etched in the collective memory of generations through cinema screens to TV channels to OTT platforms, vinyl records to streaming apps, and through memes in the digital world. It is still finding new ways to connect with the audiences of all age-groups.
Published on August 14, 2025
