Ramanagaram
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
2015
The Times of India, Aug 09 2015
Jayanth Kodkani
- With inputs by Charan CS and Aparajita Ray
A 2 km-drive off the main road gets you to Ramadevarabetta or Ramgiri Hills or Sholay Hills. Sholey was shot in the village long back. With no trace of props, sets or replicas, the exact location is a blur.Sometimes even for those who have been part of it. Anwar Khan was in his teens when he played the bit role of a goatherd who is witness to Basanti's kidnapping and directs Veeru owards the hills in which Gabbar's men have taken her. Khan, a school dropout and now a tailor in Bengaluru, can't place the exact spots oday . “Some time ago when my children wanted to go there, I couldn't ind the place where it was shot.“
In the years that have rolled on, the neighbourhood has had a colony for the Iruliga tribe, a government school, and some other small structures. But perhaps the biggest change since has been the fencing of the land around Ramadevarabetta. It was done to declare an area of 346.14 hectares around as a vulture sanctuary, the country's irst, on January 31, 2012. Many plans were devised since the movie became a runaway suc cess: A Sippynagar showcasing the movie, a resort that celebrates its legend and even a tourist destina tion that recreates the magic, but nothing has happened on ground.
Hiking and biking clubs, though, have gone on to make it a cool desti nation. Anil Kadsur, who organizes rides to the hills, says, “Riding 100km (to and fro) and climbing the 400-odd steps helps us unwind.“
After riding up to the foothills, cyclists climb the steep stone steps to reach the temple and a little pond.
“The view of the Bengaluru-Mysu ru state highway from there is breathtaking,“ he says. Art of Bicycle Trips (ABT) offers two rides in and around Ramanagaram. They also have a ride named after David Lean's, A Passage to India, based on EM Forster's novel.Some scenes of Lean's film were shot at Ramadevarabetta and the adjoining Sawandurga hills in 1983.
Yet it is the granite boulders on Sholay Hills that will live on. Believed to be among the oldest in history , geologists know the stone here as Closepet Granite. Closepet itself was named after Sir Barry Close (1756-1813), an army general in the East India Company . The place was later called Ramanagaram.
These sweeping vistas of history have passed on to scenes on celluloid.Even if there's nothing else to show that Sholay was made here, the hush around the hills will remain part of that memory .
