Yeh Dosti With Sholay: The film that India never stopped watching or quoting or undercounting

New Delhi: By today’s metrics, Sholay would have grossed ₹1,944–₹3,231 crore. Not just inflation-adjusted—but population-corrected, screen-scaled, and platform-multiplied.

That makes it the highest-grossing Indian film of all time.

More than Dangal. More than RRR. More than Pathaan, Jawan, or Baahubali.

And yet, because it was released in 1975—when India had 620 million people, tickets cost Rs 1.25, and OTT wasn’t a gleam in any studio’s eye—Sholay remains curiously undercounted.

Let’s fix that.

In 1975, when the grim overhang of The Emergency loomed over India, a commercial film was released that its director, Ramesh Sippy and his father, GP Sippy, had ambitiously overspent on. It was not art cinema, nor government-backed message-making. It was loud, expensive, risky—and made to entertain.

And at first, it didn’t. Sholay opened to a lukewarm response. People whispered about it, skeptically. The theatres weren’t full. But then again, whispers were the only thing permitted in 1975.

And then, the whistles got louder. Footfalls increased. Word spread—not by promo blitzes or PR circuits, but by the oldest marketing system in India: a neighbour telling a neighbour to go watch, classrooms full of character mimics, delivering lines true to a dialogue pause. Every instinct insinuating—go watch it… go watch it again.

The film, like the Emergency itself, turns 50 in 2025. But this is no time for gloom. A gagged India, stripped of political voice and press freedom, seemed to have found speech again—not with protests or pamphlets, but with Gabbar Singh, Thakur, Veeru, and Jai.

A crippled cop, two petty crooks, and a bandit gave India a language it hadn’t heard before.

And behind that language? A commercial juggernaut no one’s ever properly counted.

With all the digital gimmickry and algorithmic polish at its disposal, commercial Indian cinema has yet to outdo an analogue train dacoity like Sholay’s. It has not choreographed an item number with more enduring sensuality than “Mehbooba.” No prosthetic has conjured more menace than the raw, roguish method of Gabbar Singh.

So it is only fair to imagine what Sholay would mean to the box office if today’s cinematic ecosystem—with its global screens, streaming platforms, satellite rights, and population scale—were applied to that film.
Because Sholay hasn’t aged. And it hasn’t faded.

It has only been undercounted.

“Kitne Aadmi The?”

The Box Office Illusion

Gabbar asked the right question. Not how many crores, but how many people.

It is true that in 1975, Sholay grossed around Rs 15 crore at the Indian box office—a staggering amount at the time, but modest by today’s standards [1]. But raw numbers are meaningless without context. And context—population, ticket price, and viewing platforms—has changed dramatically.

In 1975, India had a population of about 620 million, based on linear interpolation between the 1971 and 1981 Census data [2]. The average cinema ticket cost Rs 1 to Rs 1.50 [3]. There were roughly 12,000 single screens across the country. Overseas earnings were marginal; TV was state-owned. Yet even in that analogue era, Sholay sold over 12 crore tickets during its original run—a figure widely cited by Box Office India, making it the most watched Hindi film in theatres until well into the 1990s—close to 20% of India’s population [4].

Now fast-forward to 2025. India has 1.43 billion people [5]. The average ticket price is ₹150–₹180, reflecting higher prices in modern cineplexes across urban and B/C towns, balanced with single screens [6]. Multiplexes dominate. International releases are globalised. And streaming, satellite, and music rights are full-fledged revenue pillars.

Today’s unified market, with Hindi films thriving in South India and South films in the North, amplifies Sholay’s potential reach [7]. Unlike 1975, when language barriers limited its Southern audience, a dubbed or subtitled Sholay could captivate pan-Indian viewers with its timeless appeal, outnumbering modern blockbusters like Dangal (8.5–10 crore tickets) and KGF: Chapter 2 (6.7–7.7 crore tickets) [8, 9].

Apply a conservative 5–10% population share to 2025’s base, reflecting Sholay’s cultural dominance and modern distribution while accounting for competition from OTT and regional cinema [10]. That means Sholay would sell 7.15–14.3 crore tickets today—generating ₹1,144–₹2,431 crore in domestic theatrical alone. A less conservative 10–15% share, closer to its 1975 reach, would yield 14.3–21.45 crore tickets, or ₹2,288–₹3,861 crore [11].

Add ₹300–₹500 crore from overseas markets, conservatively estimated based on Pathaan’s international earnings and Sholay’s global cult status (e.g., Iran tributes) [12, 13]. Add another ₹300–₹500 crore from OTT, satellite, and music rights, conservatively estimated based on Pathaan’s non-theatrical revenue, though speculative for a 1975 film [14, 15]. That puts Sholay’s 2025-equivalent revenue at ₹1,944–₹3,231 crore (5–10% share) or ₹2,888–₹4,861 crore (10–15% share), surpassing Dangal’s ₹2,050 crore despite its global reach [16].

“Yeh Dosti Hum Nahin Todenge…”

Not Just a Film—A Totem Pole

Some films age into cult status. Others fade gracefully. Sholay did neither. It metastasised into India’s cultural nervous system. It wasn’t just a story about dacoits and vengeance. It was about friendship, loss, swagger, sacrifice, and howling silence. It defined everything the 1970s were too afraid to say aloud.
It wasn’t realism. It wasn’t “parallel cinema.” It wasn’t set in Calcutta’s existentialist shadows or the rice fields of a dying village. It was commercial. Aesthetically unquestionable. And that’s what made its success all the more unbelievable.

“Gabbar ke taap se tumhe sirf ek aadmi bacha sakta hai…”

A Comparative Reckoning

And that man is arithmetic. Let the numbers speak plainly:

If cinema is to be measured by reach, impact, and gross in adjusted terms, Sholay still stands unbeaten.
“Basanti… in kutton ke saamne mat nachna.”

Let’s Talk About “Just a Commercial Film”

Yes, Sholay was a commercial film. And no matter how good it was, its aim was to suspend disbelief and entertain. It wasn’t arthouse. It wasn’t state-funded. It wasn’t made for a medal from Cannes.
For a long time in the Indian critical imagination, “good cinema” meant “parallel cinema.” Realism, restraint, allegory.

But let us, just this once, take commercial cinema at its word. Let us measure its success on the terms it set—reach, recall, revenue, rewatchability, and resurrection.

Because if you measure Sholay by what it achieved in 1975 and scale it accurately to what that means in 2025, it may not be the greatest Indian film ever made, but it is certainly the most popular, the most commercially successful, and arguably the most iconic film in Indian pop culture history.
And Finally… A Khan for the Ages

People fed on the folklore of the three Khans—Shah Rukh, Salman, and Aamir—and old connoisseurs rolling their tongue over the memory of a Yusuf Khan (Dilip Kumar), would do well to remember that other Khan.
Amjad. Amjad Khan.

“Kyunki jab pachaas kos door, bachcha rota hai… to maa kehti hai—so ja beta, nahin to Gabbar aa jaayega.”
And that child still sleeps.
The box office still hasn’t woken up.

Footnotes:

[1] Box Office India, “Historical Data: Sholay,” 2015, accessed via boxofficeindia.com.
[2] Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India, “Census 1971, 1981,” interpolated linearly, supported by World Bank, “India Population Data,” 1975.
[3] Screen India, “Box Office Reports,” 1975, corroborated by FICCI Media & Entertainment Archives, Cinemaazi, 2025. Estimate due to informal 1975 records.
[4] The Hindu, “Sholay at 50,” August 2025. South India’s resistance to Hindi films in 1975 limited reach.
[5] UN World Population Prospects, 2022 Revision, corroborated by World Bank, “Population Estimates,” 2023.
[6] FICCI-EY Media & Entertainment Report, 2023, “Ticket Price Trends,” p. 42; Variety, “India’s Tier-2/3 Cinema Boom,” September 2023. ATP varies regionally.
[7] FICCI-EY, 2023, “Regional Box Office Trends,” p. 48; The Wire, “Sholay at 50: A Cultural Juggernaut,” January 2025.
[8] Box Office India, “Dangal Box Office,” 2016, accessed via boxofficeindia.com.
[9] Box Office India, “KGF Chapter 2 Box Office,” 2022, accessed via boxofficeindia.com.
[10] FICCI-EY, 2023. OTT’s 50 crore subscriptions may cap theatrical share.
[11] A 10–15% share is optimistic but plausible given Sholay’s pan-Indian potential.
[12] Box Office India, “Pathaan Overseas,” 2023; The Wire, “Sholay at 50,” January 2025.
[13] Overseas revenue is speculative; Sholay’s appeal in China/West is untested.
[14] FICCI-EY, 2023; Variety, “Bollywood’s OTT Boom,” June 2023.
[15] Non-theatrical revenue is speculative; Sholay’s aesthetic may limit OTT appeal.
[16] Box Office India, “Dangal,” 2016. Sholay’s ticket sales (7.15–14.3 crore) exceed Dangal’s.