A Movie within a Movie

A MOVIE WITHIN A MOVIE

My husband & I, were newly married.

And in his bid to cover up for the slow-boring life in Chandigarh for his fast-paced Bombay bred wife, he decided to take me for a movie. 

(I did not realise at that time i.e. 20 years ago, what a thoughtful and considerate act it was on his behalf).

He seemed more excited about going for the movie than me. 

May be it was one of his first few visits to the cinema.

Proudly he told me that he was taking me to 'Dhillon', the biggest cinema hall in Asia which sported a seating capacity of 600 seats. So the availability of movie tickets for impromptu goers like us is high.

On hearing this info I went into a tizzy.   

600 seater cinema hall ! 

Haila !   

So many people, just like a mini Punjabi wedding. 

But I had no inkling of the tizzing sights that lay ahead.

We reached the cinema hall. 

It was a Full House. All 600 seats were sold out but the crowd waiting outside 

seemed three times more. 

A sea of crowd, comprising of movie buffs, vendors, touts, cows and dogs, waited outside the gate. 

I behaved brave and unfazed as though I had seen it all in Bombay.

As the previous show came close to an end, the crowd thickened outside the entrance gate.

The entrance gate was locked and the key was with a thin seasoned gate-man, who kept pacifying our wait, saying "buss ji, panj minut hor". 

The wait and impatience of the crowd gave way to pushing. 

With the weight of the 600 odd eager public on the iron gate, it almost started caving in. 

The thin gate-man sat hunched on his stool, picking his teeth with a twig, unperturbed and deaf to the vocal outburst of eloquent punjabi frustration flowing from those waiting on the other side of the gate. 

I wondered how he would manage to unlock the gate with the crowd pushing on it so strongly.

Finally, some how, defying all laws of physics, the gate did manage to open and a tsunami of people rushed into the cinema hall.  I could do nothing but flow in with the tide to avoid injuries. 

There must be 3-4 casualties in every show, I imagined. 

 But to my amazement, all were so agile, nimble and quick that there were no casualties.  

As though I was riding on a wave at the beach side, the flow of people automatically carried me up the steps to the movie hall. 

The movie hall was dimly lit. 

By this time I had lost my husband and I just stood there at the entrance of the auditorium, wide eyed, watching others.  A little later I realised that there is no numbering system on the seats or tickets and the seating worked purely on "First come, First seated" basis.  

So in the dim light, people rushed and pushed through the aisles, jumped over rows of seats to sit with their friends. 

They called out to each other in full volume

 "Aye Happy, tu kithey hai?"  

 "Oye Sweety, mere kol aaja, ithey soni seeetta hai". 

 "Oye Puppi, teri toh,  salle.....*#%*!^*#..... ooray aah".

Some how, my husband found me and we managed to get two seeetta together. 

Quite an accomplishment.

The lights dimmed further. 

The movie started but the audience remained unsettled.  

The noise and commotion continued. I could see silhouettes of people in front of the screen, reuniting with their groups, (which meant visual disruption along with adjustment of the neighbouring seats, leading to higher noise decible and an occasional flow of vocal punjabi irritation if some neighbours did not comply to the "edjestment" demands.) 

With the start of the movie, the Usher started his personalised service, seat-to-seat ticket checking. 

The doors to the movie hall remained open to facilitate late entries and the rays of the setting sun hit straight on to the screen making it a visually impaired film.  

On my left sat 2 thin bhaiyas (I presumed from U.P. or Bihar), both squeezed into one seat (because the seat cushion next to them was missing). They had carried along a small suitcase and held it tight between them.

FJ briefed me that seats were stolen from cinemas depending on their comfort level.

The uncomfortable ones remained.

Just imagine, for every  movie ticket worth rs.7, one seat-cushion free!

Absolutely Worth It.

The suitcase made FJ ill at ease and he questioned the bhaiyas on the contents in the case.

They didnt understand us and we didn't understand them.

They continued sitting together with their suitcase squeezed in.

Every 5 mins. FJ kept checking on their suitcase.

The Usher continued with his personalised, seat-to-seat ticket checking duty. 

Hunting & Edjestments of lost friends continued thru the movie. 

Tickets seemed to have been sold twice the amount of seats. 

But we Indians are soooo edjesting that the extra ones were accommodated in the aisles, and for some VIP's....chairs were got from the manager's office and accommodated in the aisle space, in the back rows.  

Sooner than I realised it was INTERMISSION Time.  I dared not to move....not even to go to the loo.

At the cafeteria,  food lovers seemed engrossed in samosa, sendwich & koffi.  After all in Punjab, snacks are the most important part of the movie.  

Soon it was movie time again.  But the audience took its own time to burp & settle into the seats.

Some thing fluttered at my feet. 

 "Mice" FJ said, "and be ready for the cat to follow suit".

Then, around the time of the climax,  came the anti climax.

Suddenly the 'Soft Drinks Recovery Guys' entered for retrieval of empty bottles. They passed thru every row, bending low, touching the floor, shifting and scanning thru all legs in the dark to retrieve their bottles. 

Climax missed.

The movie ends.

I protest... "I hardly got a chance to see the movie".

FJ....."but you got to see a lot more of other things".

As we exited, we passed by the dam (almost caving in) blocking the human sea waiting outside for the next show.

And I heard the gate man murmur "buss, panj minut hor".

The show goes on. 

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