And ladies and gentlemen, I soldier on, in my quest to write about my observations and thoughts on the 1975 cult classic, Sholay. If you've landed on this page directly, do check out the eight nuggets that I've unearthed so far:
And so here I am, on the ninth nugget, and I'm talking about a phrase used in the film that has some interesting perspectives.
Phrase: Khota Sikka To Dono Hi Taraf Se Khota Hota Hai (खोटा सिक्का तो दोनो ही तरफ से खोटा होता है)
"Jai, tune meri jaan bachane ke liye, itna bada dhoka diya hai?" is what Veeru surmises during Jai's death scene, and he realizes that Jai had been fooling Veeru all along by flipping a coin with heads on both sides. That coin was always a khota sikka (fake coin) throughout the movie. But what Veeru finds out at the end of the movie, the audience is given a hint right at the beginning of the film.
At 5m.30s during the initial interaction between the Jailor and Thakur sahab, here's what transpires:
Jailor: Thakur sahab, main yeh to nahi jaanta ki aapko kya kaam hai, lekin
itna zaroor jaanta hoon ki yeh dono kisi kaam ke nahin.
Thakur: Nahin Jailor sahab, agar ek taraf in mein yeh sab kharabiyaan hain to
doosri taraf kuchh khubiyaan bhi hain.
Jailer: Khota sikka to dono hi taraf se khota hota hai
Thakur: Sikke aur insaan mein shayad yehi faraq hai
There, the underlined sentence is the giveaway, but I'm wondering how many in the audience, even after watching Sholay a 100 times, would have noticed and made the connection? That a fake coin is fake on both sides - and so is the coin used in the movie.
This coin was specially handcrafted by the production team of Sholay, where two heads were stuck together. Production had made six double-headed coins for retakes. For the long shots Khalish Lukhnavi, the production assistant would hand Veeru normal twenty-five-paise coins, and for the close-ups, the handcrafted double-headed one. At the end, Veeru struggled with the coin in the rocky terrain, and by the time the shot was finished, they ended up with just one last fake coin. And that is the coin that is in Jai's hand when he dies. No one knows where the other 5 double-headers are.
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| The double sided fake coin used in Sholay |
But eventually, enterprising people started recreating the coins and selling them on auctions. I've even heard that the coin was sold for crores of rupees. One such incident occurred in 2016, when many Sholay coins began to flood the rare coin market. “It started like it always does with a guy on Facebook showing off a photo saying he had managed to procure a Sholay coin,” says a collector. “In two to three months, the coin begins popping up everywhere. Soon every dealer in the country has about 20 of these coins (remember that originally, only 6 had been produced and five lost in the rockies of Ramanagaram). It even begins showing up at (rare coin) exhibitions.” According to the story put out, these coins had been produced because of an error at the mint in Kolkata. A single Sholay coin was then going for Rs 1.6 lakh.
A few people began to raise doubts. And a numismatist, acting upon these suspicions, was able to get a response from the Kolkata mint saying it had never produced these coins. Some medal and souvenir maker had managed to create a dye to make these coins in a factory… About three sacks filled with these coins were found there!
The only reliable source of the coin is an auction house called Rajgor's that lists the coin to be sold to a 'Bollywood fan' for Rs. 26,000. You can see the listing details here.
But coming back to the film, this concept of tossing the coin was inspired from the 1954 Western, Garden of Evil, where Gary Cooper and Richard Windmark draw cards to see who will stay back and fight the Apaches pursuing them. Windmark, the 'winner,' stays and dies. Salim and Javed took this thread, converted cards to the coin and stretched it to weave it throughout the movie. And helped Jai take the right decision everytime the two were in a dilemma! So the khota sikka always did khara kaam!
That was the nugget. Samjhe ke nahin? Agar achha laga to comment kijiye. Agar achha nahin laga to lament kijiye.
Goodbye, aadab and namaste.
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