Blow hot, blow cold...

My blow hot, blow cold relationship with movies did not result from love at first sight but still culminated into a life long commitment. As time galloped on horses and flew on wings, love and commitment walked the tight rope between boredom and enchantment. But as in a conventional marriage there was no backing out. Both the seven-year itch and the twenty-year ditch took a back seat, as a sense of familiarity – of just being used to and helplessness – can’t do without it, prevailed.

Fed on Rajesh Khanna romantic emotionals as a kid, the intense involvement of the ‘angry young man’ became a teenage staple diet. While Sangeet (my home town cinema hall) screened the vitamin intake, the foreign films, the quartet of Shaban-Naseer-Smita-Om provided food for the intellect.

As video culture descended on the domestic scene trips to the theatre became few and far between. With the smallest possible family of three we were always home alone. Each evening, three pairs of eyes would dig deep into books and newspapers and more books and more newspapers. The eerie silence that shortly befell the house forwarded open invitations to ghosts.
(It’s the same even now. But of course with kids making dhama chaukdi, the ghosts would run backwards to save their lives! Trust my better half to buy cds/dvds and deny us the pleasure of watching a movie on the big screen.)

To get back to my story, in spite of it being a mad, mad, mad world, one can neither fiddle on the roof nor fly over the cuckoo’s nest. So I continued to keep my date with the pot pourri that was custome made in the name of cinema. The only opposition I faced, the only samaj ki deewar I had to topple was the question of company.

Ammi –as religious in practice as modern in outlook - would fret and still does (which is what is keeping us away from watching the new version of Mughal-e-Azam) about missing prayers, the long drive to the far away theatres, the four-track/dolby whatever sound system, the chilled hall…so on and so forth. Not to mention the grand motherly sermon if the movie fails to measure up to her standards. I still remember the dressing down I received over Marilee Matlee’s swimming pool scene in Children of a Lesser God and the Julia Roberts’s famous only tie on person and bathtub scenes in Pretty Woman!

Pop is an exclusively English movie buff. Mention Oliver Stone and he will make you a friend for a lifetime. After three screenings of Platoon, he even contemplated buying a copy to add to his wartime movies collection. One look from ammi and the issue was resolved. He hasn’t mentioned Platoon since.

So, I was always on alert to catch my victims to go movie watching. One of the first was an uncle, in town on a three-day visit. I took him to Benhur and Ten Commandments on the first two days and was all set to drag him to Omar Mukhtar on th third but ammi put her foot down and made me attend a party in his honour instead. Another uncle gave a video copy later but I haven’t forgiven ammi yet.
Now I feel all giggly and excited like a teenager when Mr. takes me out on a movie date, saal may ek baar. Otherwise I have to make do with the cds/dvds he buys for us. Hazaar baar dekho, baar baar dekho, theatre kya jaana, waste of time, he says.
I compensate somehow and keep my passion alive. Allah yeh channel walon ko abaad rakhe; they show some real good movies aur phir mein hat trick mar leti hoon doing channel serfing. It’s another story that I keep yawning in the office the next day!

But watching a movie in a theatre has its own thrills. Not long ago, I was staying with mom n pop. Kiddos were visiting their dad on the weekend and I was feeling low. Ammi took me shopping and I dragged a cousin along who had come over. We were shopping in Abid’s and the Rama Krisha Theatre nearby beckoned me so temptingly. I had a brainwave. Made ammi and cousin grab a bite of hot crispy dosas at the Taj Mahal, dumped the bags at an aunt’s place who lived at a walking distance, made ammi take a siesta with her, and headed off to the theatre with the cousin in tow and got into the ticket line. Boy! What an experience! Qayamat ka sa samaa tha! From grandkids to grandmoms, they were all there! Tempers and hair were flying! People were getting vocal at the slightest pretext. Words were being exchanged and the serpentine queue was inching on a snail’s pace. A couple of hours had gone by and ammi forgot all about her siesta and came looking for us. We were a sight! Sandwiched between two portly, mean, no-nonsense ladies. She pleaded with us to come away. No way, we said, after having come so close. We finally arrived at the ticketing counter. Phew!
The movie, Devdas, was loud and extravagant but what the heck! We enjoyed ourselves!
Only when we returned home and checked the papers did we realise that it was the second day of the show! No wonder people were going mad!
Buying tickets is not such a mad rush really if you book your tickets in advance or through the telly-booking sevice. It’s only when you are crazy enough to decide to watch one on the spur of the moment that you end up in such a mad rush!