Spiderman said, "With great power comes great responsibility." We vividly remember the day when we were given the great responsibility of designing and engineering the entire sound of Sholay. The 1975 cult classic was to be re-leased in 3D and the producers saw merit in making it sound contemporary... and they chose us for the job!
This was an honour reserved for Gods. We felt powerful. We also knew, that should we fail, all our past successes would come to a naught. Raju Singh, Parikshit Lalvani and Kunal Mehta would go down in history as the boys who messed up Sholay! That is a thought that manifests itself in ulcers, migraines and nightmares.
As we looked at each other, we saw fear... a very real fear... a very contagious fear that leaped from one set of eyes into another and made its way into each of our hearts with a certainty that we felt run down our spines... You see, Sholay is not a movie... it is a religion, an emotion... a way of life. Sholay was a story we grew up with, the way we grew up reading our religious texts. Jai, Veeru, Basanti were a part of our smiles, while grandmothers put many of us to sleep saying, "So ja, varna Gabbar Singh aa jayega..."
But it wasn't just Thakur or Soorma Bhopali or Sambha... Even Sound was a character in Sholay. Every little sound from the gun shots, to the chugging of the train's engine in the beginning, to the unforgettable coin toss... said something profound. Even silence spoke in the moments before Rahim Chacha asked, "Itna sannata kyon hai bhai?"... Viewers felt Basanti's pain as they heard her dainty bare feet crush glass as she danced over broken bottles... And then there was the haunting emptiness when a young Thakur returns to find his family dead... with a swing swaying, sounding like a young child's mournful wail...
This was an honour reserved for Gods. We felt powerful. We also knew, that should we fail, all our past successes would come to a naught. Raju Singh, Parikshit Lalvani and Kunal Mehta would go down in history as the boys who messed up Sholay! That is a thought that manifests itself in ulcers, migraines and nightmares. As we looked at each other, we saw fear... a very real fear... a very contagious fear that leaped from one set of eyes into another and made its way into each of our hearts with a certainty that we felt run down our spines... You see, Sholay is not a movie... it is a religion, an emotion... a way of life. Sholay was a story we grew up with, the way we grew up reading our religious texts. Jai, Veeru, Basanti were a part of our smiles, while grandmothers put many of us to sleep saying, "So ja, varna Gabbar Singh aa jayega..."
Our task was to recreate it all... from the scratch!
Stay tuned for our blog posts as we share our trials, tribulations and triumphs with you. Stay tuned for... The Sound of Sholay...
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