Sholay - both sides now

Wohooo. They really did. They screened the censored version of Sholay tonight at the indian film week. I so hoped they would.

But let me start at the beginning. When I started to spend most of my worldy assets for Bollywood DVDs about 2 years ago, one of the first ones I got was of course Sholay. Problem tha ki Subtitles bahut kharab the. In fact they just did not work after about the first 30 minutes. It took me until this summer that I finally had enough and bought it a second time to finally be able to enjoy it in full.
Then during the short summer vacation I read Anupama Chopra´s "Sholay- the making of the classic". And then it got interesting but confusing. In both my DVDs Gabbar gets killed by the Thakur. Which is, as I learned from the book, the original ending that is supposed to be very hard to find and if, only on bootleged DVDs.

As you might recall Sholay was originally released in 1975 during the State of Emergency in India. And according to the book, the Censorboard was not happy with the movies climax. It particulary had a problem with the Thakur taking the law into his own hands and the police being a no-show in the fight against Gabbar. Not the best or most educationally worthwhile painted picture of the law-enforcement community in political instable times like these. So they forced Ramesh Sippy to re-shoot the scene having it end with the police showing up, giving some lectures on the importance of abiding the law and stop the Thakur before "doing the wrong thing".
Sippy was quite unhappy but it was the only way the movie would pass. So, again according to the book, the indian and later the international audience had to make do with an emotionally way weaker climax. Funny thing was though. For me the climax always ended with Gabbars death aka the uncensored version. The book telling me I have DVDs with an end that is supposed to be very hard to get was kind of confusing. And it made me curious to get my hands on the clipped version. HAH. And tonight I finally got it. And its really so less satisfying. I pity all who have not had a chance to watch the breakdown of the Thakur after Gabbar is dead. Fan-tas-tic!

PS: The DVD with the original ending and the working subtitles is the Eros release from 2000. I got mine from nehaflix.
PPS: I still claim I know Sholay from years ago. Like the 80ies or so. I will have to bother my contacts (who have nothing to do with TV programming - but they are as close to the knowing people as I can get) at the ORF (Austrian Broadcast Cooperation) and make them find out it Sholay was ever played on TV in Austria (finding out for Germany will be harder) because this is the only place I could have seen it.

EDIT 28/9/06: Ok, so it was not the ORF and it was not the 80ies. The German/French Channel ARTE aired it (a censored version) once only on August 14th, 1997.

PPPS: What climax have you seen? And I´m especially curious if the original ending is being shown in India? And if, since when. The book is from 2000 as well. So back then it still must have been the censored climax...