Here at the 40th anniversary of Sholay, I thought about these two women, how both their natures and their actions drive key moments in the narrative. Sholay is a showpiece for its male stars – most SalimJaved movies, and indeed most movies of their era or any era, are showpieces for their male stars. But SalimJaved were rarely content to use female characters as windowtrapping or as vapid shiny surfaces from which to reflect male charisma in the form of formulaic romance.
Radha and Basanti have depth and dimension and agency. They are fully realised human beings in the world of Sholay. And they aren't alone. One of the pleasures of SalimJaved movies is how often they crafted vivid female characters like this for their stories.
One of SalimJaved's scripts was not so much a showpiece for its male stars as it was for Hema Malini: Seeta aur Geeta. Her two titular characters in that film span as broad a space as Radha and Basanti in Sholay; the submissive, cautious Seeta retracts into the smallest space she can manage to occupy, while Geeta, big and impulsive, could not contemplate any other expression than bold selfassertion. Geeta's forthright strength of personality is a wave of change that transforms – or at least exhausts – nearly everyone in the movie.
Early on, Ravi (Sanjeev Kumar) character muses about the type "seedhisaadhi Hindustani ladki" he wishes to marry. But then Ravi meets Geeta, and bowled over by the magnificent energy with which she engages the world, he learns what kind of woman he really wants. Geeta transforms Seeta's oppressive aunt (Manorama), too, from a raging tyrant to a cringing submissive.
When the chips are down, even the meek Seeta is inspired by the force of her fearless twin's personality to become an active participant in her own fate. And then the movie closes with some quick scenes of very bold husbandswapping shenanigans perpetrated by both sisters; who knows whether the two men land up in the correct rooms? Without Geeta's transformative influence, Seeta could never have been in on such a scandalous practical joke.
Other SalimJaved scripts feature women of agency, too. The narrative of Don is driven in large part by Roma's quest for revenge. In Deewaar, Parveen Babi's character helped reshape the landscape of the Hindi film heroine, smoking cigarettes, drinking liquor, and even appearing in a bed scene beside her lover. In Shaan, Renu (Bindiya Goswami) beats two highwatt stars at their own game, conning the conmen Vijay and Ravi (Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor, of course) into dropping Rs.30,000 on a stolen car. Later, when they plan a jewel heist, Sunita (Parveen Babi) steals the necklace right out from under their noses, before planting it on Vijay.
Finally, the two women join forces with the stars to create a team of expert fraudsters. Women in SalimJaved movies are sometimes respected professionals. In Kaala Patthar, Parveen Babi plays an investigative reporter looking to expose the conditions endured by mine workers, and Rakhee's character is an idealistic physician who hopes to heal both their bodies and their souls. In Trishul, Hema Malini is the general manager of a realestate company – indeed, Shashi Kapoor stammering with both surprise and attraction when his character realises this is one of the film's funniest scenes. Even Sridevi plays a reporter in a SalimJaved script, Mr India.
But the most haunting of SalimJaved's women are the ones whose gravitas grounds the stories that swirl around them. In Kaala Patthar, Rakhee's idealist doctor forms a cerebral connection with the tortured, philosophical Vijay; their relationship moors the film with its pensive steadiness in contrast to the masala energy of the film's other relationships. In Deewaar, Nirupa Roy, as Vijay and Ravi's mother, is a deeply principled and fiercely dignified person. Her dignity, the source of her unshakeable integrity, drives the most dramatic moments of the film. And then there is
Sholay's Radha, perhaps the gravest of all, in whose silences are wrapped a minipolemic about the treatment of widows and their right to pursue happiness in their own lives.
Much is said these days about "strong female characters". These women of SalimJaved films are strong female characters, not just in the sense of having personal strength of will, or reserves for enduring suffering, but in the sense of being sharply defined and human, something more than props for the male characters of their films.
Though SalimJaved's movies, just as those of the industry at large (then and now), tend to focus more on the men on whose stories they center, the women they create are often fully realised human beings. They are people you feel you want to know.