The 70mm saga was a plot worthy of Salim-Javed. A senior bureaucrat in the finance ministry had declared war on the Sippy's. Since a large part of the post-production work was done in London, several permissions were sought. The bureaucrat felt he hadn't been given adequate importance and was still simmering. He decided to use every ploy to throw 'Sholay'off track.
When the unit went to London, he wrote to the Indian High Commission there to keep close tabs on them. The Commission obliged. When the 70mm print came out, Ramesh decided to have a screening for friends and family. It was fixed for 10 one morning at the Odeon at Marble Arch. Ramesh also rang up the High Commissioner. 'But how,' said a senior secretary at the commission, 'can you have a screening? You don't have permission for that. Your contract says materials must go straight from Technicolour to India.' Then suddenly the secretary changed track: 'Okay, we'll come.' Ramesh had an intuition that all wasn't well and at the last minute cancelled the screening. It was fortunate. Because at exactly 9:50, people from the High Commission turned up to seize the print. Orders were sent out to stall the Sippy's at every level. When Ramesh landed in Mumbai, he was stripped searched. When even that didn't produce anything, the bureaucrat simply told the custom officials not to clear the print. On the morning of 14 August the prints were still lying in tins at the customs.
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