What Sachit Thinks

The third of this series on Sholay is also a muhavra . And it's an example of the genius of Salim-Javed. Muhavra: Loha Garam Hai, Maardo Hathoda (लोहा गरम है, मार दो हथौड़ा) The proverb has been used brilliantly in the movie - why? I will explain in a bit. It appears at (1h.49m) when Girija (from Pipri village) brings the news that Gabbar's nomadic arms suppliers ( Hira aur uske saathi ) have appeared near his village. That's when Thakur tells Jai and Veeru  by predicting that Gabbar will certainly appear to buy arms and says ' Loha Garam Hai, Maar Do Hathoda '. The English equivalent of this proverb is 'Strike while the iron is hot' and even Latin, ' Carpe Diem '. This expression refers to art of the lohar or the blacksmith. In order to get the desired shape, the blacksmith must hit the piece of iron when it is red hot. Once the iron cools down, it cannot be shaped. This idiom has existed in English since at least the 1500s. We find early...

So, I'm not going in any particular order of the appearances of the muhavras , but the second one to catch my attention is this one. Muhavra: Kala Akshar Bhains Barabar (काला अक्षर भैंस बराबर ) To be technically right, the usage in the movie is ' kale ' as against ' kala ' and it appears, again at the end of the movie (at 2h.26m). The scene is that Jai and Veeru have been allegedly killed by the gaonwalas as a gift to Gabbar and sent their bodies as proof.  There are five  dakus who see the alleged bodies and one of dismounts his horse to check. He sees a letter strapped to Veeru (yes, I checked this too!). He says, " Arre, yeh kya hai? Chitthi? " To which another daku  (still mounted) remarks " Kale Akshar Bhains Barabar. Chitthi nahin to kya hai? Padh! "  Then of course, the accursed daku reads the contents of the letter. I my view, this muhavra has not been used correctly. I will explain why.  Let us first understand what this phrase...

Ellis Boy "Red" Redding : I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I? don't wanna know. I would like to think they were singing about some thing was so beautiful it cant be expressed in words and make your heart ache because of it.I tell you this voice soared higher and farther than anybody in a Gray place dares to dream it is like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away. For the briefest moment every last man in Shawshank felt free. Andy Dufresne : Remember Red! Hope is a good thing, may be best of things and no good thing ever dies. These two passages from the 1994 icon The Shawshank Redemption streamed through my head as I was watching brilliance unfold in front of me through 'Every Brilliant Thing'. EBT is an intimately inspiring format of theatre, directed by Quasar Thakore Padamsee (or Q), written by Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe and performed by Vive...

Those born in the 60s and 70s have this surreal fascination for the Hindi movie Sholay - in varying degrees of intensity. Many of us regard this as the greatest (Hindi) movie ever made, and a few of us go completely crazy discussing finer points of the movie. So I'm beginning a new series, where I will capture one nugget from the movie and talk a bit about it. These nuggets could be trivia, unknown facts, mysteries or the language used. I will begin by analyzing muhavras (idioms) used in Sholay. For me, the movie is a bhandaar (storehouse) of muhavras , and many of them are unique only to the movie. Muhavra: Oont ka pahad ke neeche ka aana (ऊंट  का  पहाड़ के नीचे का आना) Toward the end of the movie, (at 2h.45m), Veeru, who has arrived to save a trapped-by-dakus Basanti, is himself captured by Gabbar's minions. As he is being pulled into the den, Veeru tries to violently break free, when Gabbar remarks nonchalantly ' Aaj aaya hai oont pahad ke neeche ' 'आज आया...