Yeh dosti hum nahin todenge… is a beautiful song of friendship. Wish they would make more such songs! Let me also rant about the fact that there are no such songs for girls. When 2 girls are together people today have a tendency to associate it with homosexuality. People do not realize that 2 people of the same gender or even different genders can be just good friends, too. 🙁 Also I have always wondered that in the movie having lost both his arms, how can Sanjeev Kumar balance himself while climbing stairs, up or down. It was only later that I got to know that it was just make-believe.
Movie: This song appears in the hit 1975 action adventure movie Sholay (Embers), whose director is Ramesh Sippy and the producer is G P Sippy under the banner of Sippy Films. The movie starred Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, late Sanjeev Kumar, Hema Malini and Jaya Bhaduri. This was late Amjad Khan’s debut movie.
Though the movie is heavily copied from Western Classics, it is held as an archetypal film and one of the best movies made in India. It was listed among the Top 10 Indian movies of all time by the British Film Institute in 2002. It was also adjudged the Best Film of 50 years of Cinema in the 50th Annual Filmfare Awards of 2005. Cut to January 2014. The movie was re-released in theaters in 3D.
Ramgarh is a small village and the retired policeman Thakur Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar) lives there. The Thakur wants the pair of petty thieves, Veeru (Dharmendra) and Jai (Amitabh Bachchan), to help him capture Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan), a dacoit.
It is around this time that both Jai and Veeru sing this friendship song, which introduces them as important characters in the movie.
Song: The music for this song was composed by late R D Burman and the lyrics were written by late Anand Bakshi.
This song is all about the promises that 2 friends make to each other in friendship.
Video: Cinematography is by Dwarka Divecha.
Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan are very good friends. The video opens with them traveling in a motorbike, with a side car. In the beginning of the song, Amitabh Bachchan is shown sitting with his back to the camera on the side car and Dharmendra is running the bike. Both the versatile actors act as if they are themselves singing. This is a plus point in the actors of those days.
Both of them are very happy. Their happiness is seen in their very naughty behavior. Amitabh Bachchan places his stick-like legs on the front part of the sidecar. He tries to fully lie on it. But due to his height, he can straighten only ¾th of his body and he has to sit inside the sidecar.
The 2 actors perform every possible stunt on the motorbike, to show their happiness. Both of them are thieves so stealing the cap from the head of someone sleeping near a large banyan tree is easy. The shot, where Amitabh Bachchan hangs on the aerial roots of the large banyan tree and then gets back to his place on the sidecar, while Dharmendra moves in circles around him, has been picturized well.
The bike passes under another large tree. The branches are spread to long distances. The structure of the tree is so appealing to me, because of my Botany background. The whole song has been picturized in a comic way. The girl running away from them, after they toss a coin for her, looks funny. While Amitabh Bachchan drives the motorbike, the side car first lifts up and the bike moves in that fashion. Then the side car separates from the main bike but returns to its place when Amitabh Bachchan calls it. Like Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra are good friends, the bike and the sidecar are also good friends, it appears!
They steal a cap and an apple from 2 different people. The fact that they are thieves is shown very efficiently in those shots. This is called a situational song. Dharmendra sitting on Amitabh Bachchan’s shoulders was a risky shot because the bike is still moving. It has also been picturized very well.
Artists: Singers are Kishore Kumar and Manna Dey and Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan lip-sync to the song.
Cultural influence: 2 friends, we have seen, talk naughty things with each other. They discuss anything and everything. But they will talk to each other in front of everyone because they will not get a lonely place to discuss. They will not have any awareness about the surroundings while talking.
Many of them might race each other on motorbikes, talking with each other. But they end up in often fatal accidents after this with a sad situation for their parents. Taking cinematic liberty, the makers of this movie have picturized this song in a different way. Visually it is appealing.
