/> Amjad Khan immortalized the role of Gabbar Singh in Sholay. His actor-screenwriter-director son Shadaab Khan feels Ram Gopal Varma shouldn't put his hand in the project.

"I think re-making Sholay is a very bad idea. No matter how good a job Ram Gopal Varma does he won't be able to better it. Ramesh Sippy's Sholay was magical. You can't get one legend (Amitabh Bachchan) to play the role played by another legend.

It's like getting Kishore Kumar to sing a song already done by Mohd Rafi. Both Bachchan Saab and my dad have very strong personas. It wouldn't work. The image of my dad as Gabbar is too strong. Anything Mr Varma would do would look like a caricature.

No matter how hard Bachchan Saab tries he won't be able to better my dad's Gabbar. When my dad took on the role he had his back against the wall.

His father (actor Jayant) was terminally ill. I was just born. And he had no money in his pocket. My father didn't come to the hospital to get me and my mother when I was born because he had no money to pay for her discharge.

On the sets of my dad's first film Hindustan Ki Kasam the director Chetan Anand finally gave my dad the 500 rupees required for his discharge. That's how desperate my dad was. He put everything into Sholay.

But Bachchan Saab is no.1 star of the country. Sholay is just one more film for him. I don't see anyone putting in the same intensity in this Sholay. In Ramesh Sippy's film everyone had a point to prove. Here no one has a point to prove."

However Shadaab admits Ram Gopal Varma's Sholay will have a ready audience. "But I don't have a good feeling about it."

Shadaab doesn't think much of Gabbar Singh's look in the neo- Sholay. "It just shows the insecurity on the part of the makers. Why is Gabbar being promoted before the film's release? Obviously its makers are insecure about it.

As for the look, I didn't understand it! They've just showed Bachchan's eyes. And they had given it a green tinge ...Bachchan Saab is a fantastic actor. I'm sure he'll do an excellent job. But they should've selected a new actor to play Gabbar. A legend playing another legend's role isn't done.

But yes, with Bachchan Saab playing Gabbar will get the audience interested. Everyone including me would be interested in seeing what the finest actor in the country has done with the role."

Surprisingly Shadaab hasn't seen the original Sholay too many times. "It's a good film. But Dad has done better work in other films, specially Satyajit Ray's Shatranj Ke Khiladi. He signed that film when he was in hospital after a near-fatal accident.

Satyajit Ray came to see him. My dad was in a delirium. Ray Saab told him, 'You're my Wajid Ali Shah. And if you don't get well I'll scrap Shatranj Ke Khiladi.' My dad had a good singing voice. He sang in Shatranj....My sister has inherited that talent."

Shadaab has completed directing a thriller Highway 203 featuring K K Menon and Perizaad Zorabian. He's all set to direct another thriller and a comedy. "And I've walk-on parts in both the films.

So I'm not giving up as an actor," smiles Shadaab who started as a leading man opposite Rani Mukherjee in Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat.

Shadaab recently got married. "We plan to start a family after my brother gets married at the end of the year."