Movie Time

“Life is a play that does not allow testing. So, sing, cry, dance, laugh and live intensely, before the curtain closes and the piece ends with no applause”- Charles Chaplin

Like most people, I have been sitting at home the last couple of years watching endless movies and shows on Amazon Prime, Netflix and Disney Hotstar. Actually, watching a movie on a big screen in a theatre, fingers moving in slow motion from the tub overflowing with tri-flavoured popcorns to the mouth, tugging at the tub one last time before allowing it to get snatched away by the one sitting next to you, all seem to belong to a distant past. While I sit reminiscing my movie watching days in the good old theatres or sometimes  even in  makeshift ones , not the ones with super- posh velvety seats in sub-zero temperatures and super-reclining seats where you have to be careful to not doze off and waste a couple of thousands, some happy memories  take the field. So my warning to all my Gen X, Y, Z readers is to stay away from this post as it will sound all Greek to you or may even read like the not-always-fathomable ramblings of an idle, aging mind.

Like most people born in the mid-sixties and brought up in Bengali middle class homes, I began my tryst with films with the all-time favourite Satayjit Ray’s Goopy Gyne , Bagha Byne. Undoubtedly, one of the best movies to begin with and over the years I have learnt to appreciate it more and more at different levels with every re-watch. Obviously, I have no memory of the theatre in Calcutta where we went to watch it but it definitely was a big family event.

Most of the theatres where I grew up watching  movies in Calcutta, Bombay or Delhi (I still prefer the old names since I am at the moment transported back in time) have either metamorphosed into the wonderlands called ‘malls’ or have simply closed shop or have changed hands to transform into multiplexes or are in the process of doing so. In a little railway town called Chittaranjan of the locomotives fame (on the Bihar-Bengal border) there were no movie theatres or at least I wasn’t aware of any at that time. This was the town I spent the first few years of my life in, where the Railway Officers’ Club was the only known place to me where films were screened for the members and their families. This was our go-to place for any form of entertainment- swimming, sports, dinner, pot parties, comics, housie(tambola), Fanta, Coca-cola or Kwality ice-creams….period.  Entertaiment ended there!  Friday nights were movie nights followed by dinners to which all families in the colony looked forward in eager anticipation. Mostly English movies- the war and old classics kind or the Westerns- were screened. But at that kindergarten age the orange drink and vanilla ice-creams served in glass cups were the major draws for me rather than well dressed people in hats and coats moving about on the white screen talking endlessly in an alien language.

My earliest memory goes back to watching my first ever Hindi movie – Sawan Bhadon- with our bungalow peon and Man Friday, Bhola. He was going to watch it at a screening in some mela or exhibition ground where they used to arrange movie shows for the staff and workers from time to time. I had thrown such a tantrum that the poor guy had no way out but to take me there and also return early with me, without watching the whole of it, so as to make it in time before the curfew hours, imposed by my mom, set in. For me it was a nice piggy ride on the bicycle, back and forth to the mela ground (full of stalls, giant wheels and carrousels), with the bonus of watching a movie, projected on a makeshift screen, over the heads of a multitude of people squatting on the ground, from the vantage point of Bhola’s shoulders with a candy floss in hand. Much later, I came to know that the rather plump heroine, singing and dancing in the film (though at that time I thought they were all real people moving behind  the screens) with  huge jhumkas, bindi and thick, well oiled , plaited hair, was to do a Cinderella like act in the coming years and turn into the diva Rekha.  I guess I had started on the right note. Her Umrao Jaan and Khubsoorat have always been on the top of my charts.

My family’s moving from a small town to Bombay in the 70s meant an altogether different experience for me. In those days Eros, the iconic theatre built in the Art Deco architectural style in Churchgate, used to screen beautiful Sunday morning shows for the kids.  A whole world of films kind of opened up for me here-David Copperfield (the characters still remain etched in my mind and the opening scene with a terribly handsome, young David brooding on a deserted beach and his life’s story is unraveled in a flashback), the world of Charlie Chaplin, the inimitable Laurel and Hardy shows, Tom Sawyer, Born Free, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – to just name a few of the fabulous films that I watched here. Alas, the curtains have come down on  Eros. Also, I wonder if today’s kids , with the amount of exposure they have to screen time, will even step out of the house on a crisp, clear Sunday morning and walk down from Cuffe Parade to Eros, holding daddy’s hand, to watch a morning show. In those days, for us, it was a very big treat. Baba also took us to watch much acclaimed Bengali and Hindi movies to the little auditorium inside Akashwani like Garm Hava, Rajnigandha, Pather Panchali and Ashani Sanket. And then there was always Bollywood. Though Baba took us to watch Sholay in Maratha Mandir, he wasn’t a Hindi movie fan. There Ma intervened. But I still have notforgiven her for not taking me to watch Khel Khel Mein, Julie and Kabhi Kabhie   (I had to be satisfied seeing all my favourite stars on the huge hand painted posters all over the city and listening to the superhit songs on the radio). For that matter even Bobby was out of bounds. Naturally, though, I made sure I watched them all on television many years later.

Kolkata was my home for the next few years- high school, college, university, work, love, marriage, motherhood. Hindi movies were a big taboo in Bengali homes in those days. Not so much in our home but definitely amongst the extended family. In that way my mother was quite a rebel. Despite taunts from many family members she took the youngsters in the family to see many Hindi Movies- Deewar, Hum Kissi Se Kum Nahi, Muqaddar ka Sikandar, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Ata Hai, Aakrosh, Masoom , to name just a few from a very long list. Once, in between my tenth board theory and practical exams, I wanted to see the newly released Hum Paanch (at that time I was having a big crush on the angry young man Naseeruddin Shah).  And on our way home, whom do we bump into? None other than the most disliked of all my maternal uncles. I still remember him sniggering-Khoob Hindi cinema dekha hoy na? Parikkha cholchhe na? (You watch too many Hindi movies. Aren’t your board exams on?). Another time, mom and I were back from seeing Sanjay Dutt’s  Johny I Love You. The moment we entered home we got the news of the passing away of one of our very close elderly relatives who had been ailing for a while. Everyone was hounding my mother regarding her whereabouts that afternoon and how they had all been calling her up on the landline for the past few hours. I saw mom hesitating to say we had been out watching Johny I love You (would  have sounded a little weird considering the circumstances), so I quickly said we had gone to watch Akaler Sandhane , hoping that a Mrinal Sen directorial would save her from further grilling.

Schooldays gave little access to films and many a times I had to be content hearing the plots narrated by college going brothers and cousins. This is how I first came to know about Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Rosemary’s Baby, Omen, The Day of the Jackal, though, of course, I made sure to catch up with them in  later years. In our convent, the highest form of entertainment was the annual inter-house acting competition where we ourselves acted in highly censored plays (exchange of romantic dialogues between the hero and heroine were often left for the imagination),  the taller girls getting the men’s roles and the shorter or more beautiful ones getting the women’s parts. So you can imagine what happened when Far from the Madding Crowd (being part of the curriculum) was projected, after a few technical hiccups, on a temporary screen in a large hall packed with teenage girls. Some girls, probably, remained for a week in a trance imagining they were Bathsheba while others spent hours swooning over the charms of the irresistible Sergeant Troy or the loyalty of the stoic Gabriel Oak. Television did throw up the Saturday Bengali movies and Sunday Hindi movies with occasional marathon movie shows during election time. I had a college going cousin – the jholawala pseudo-intellectual type found in all Bong families- who would watch only the Satyajit Ray- Mrinal Sen - Shyam Benegal kinds and had a disdain for all others- and I remember getting into endless arguments with him over the merits of a film like Teesri Kasam or the appeal of a Soumitra-Suchitra hit like Saat Paake Bandha.

Our regular movie haunt with friends was Lindsay Street- Globe, Lighthouse, New Empire. These theatres once hosted Italian operas and theatrical performers from England and other parts of the West. This was where elite Indians rubbed shoulders with the Europeans in colonial Calcutta. Later, they were converted to screen celluloid but the seating arrangement still had that opera like aura. It is indeed sad that these theatres, which once entertained the entire European community and later the English cine goers, had to see very bad days before being sold off to new owners who gave them new look or transformed them to malls and cineplex. They were very much a part of our childhood and youth and it is indeed sad to see them gone.  In those days, a friend’s birthday treat always meant a movie followed by a kebab roll or an ice-cream treat. And what better place for that than Globe or Lighthouse on Lindsay Street ? A balcony or dress circle ticket would cost anything between 4-7 bucks in the best of theatres. Other seats you could get for much less. My male cousins regaled us with stories of the bug ridden 75 paise seats in some cinema halls though we girls seldom ventured there. I can still recall watching Sound Of Music (an old release) and then running all the way down the arcade in Esplanade to catch the just missed minibus back to Lady Brabourne College so that our hostel friends could be inside the campus within the stipulated time .Fortunately, in those days we still tried to abide by the rules as much as possible and ‘Pinjda tod’ had not been heard of yet.

Another time, during the Presidency College festival, I remember watching Ingmar Bergman’s So Close to Life in the morning at the Derozio Hall, followed by Mehboob Khan’s Nargis-Sunil Dutt starrer Mother India at Hind Cinema later during the day, and then returning to Presidency auditorium again in the evening to round off the day with De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves. One of my friends’ mothers had commented, “Your repertoire of films seems to be highly varied for one day. With so much in your head it is a wonder you all found your way back home.”

“Those were the days my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way
La la la la……”

Life moved on. Met S and got married. With M joining us soon after, we were caught up in the cycle of office-home-office for days and it was the end of romance and movies for us. One day we got a couple of days off for the insurance Licentiate examinations. On the first day we sat through the paper diligently. On the second day, we left home for the examination centre but when the bus was going past Metro we saw the poster of Nana Patekar’s Prahaar, exchanged guilty looks and quickly got off. Prahaar was worth playing truant for and we comforted ourselves that in any case we would have had to re-take the second paper since, with a baby at home, preparation had been next to nothing. So let second paper be shelved for another year!!

Life always comes full circle. Soon it was time to take my daughter for her first movie. Hum Aapke Hain Kaun had been running for months at Savitri Cinema close to our Delhi home. By now little M had been watching television and had picked up some of the catchy numbers from the film. Savitri was one of those theatres where you had to jostle your entry through a pushing, prodding crowd before you could manage to finally plant yourselves on your assigned seats. M was so delighted seeing her favourite Sallu- bhai dancing and singing that she entertained the audience by standing up on the seat and breaking into a song every time the known numbers would come up on screen. Fortunately for us, the audience there was watching the film for the second or third time so they were amused rather than being annoyed.

Savitri closed down a long while back. So did the shop that sold such awesome shammi kebabs near it. I do not know which I missed more. Recently, Savitri Cinema has risen from the ashes in its new avatar- Cinepolis Savitri. Nowadays, to enter theatres you do not have to shove your way through. Rather, beautifully decorated and well lit foyers welcome you. Cinemas have become an altogether exhilarating experience where more than the films other experiences like gourmet food and play areas attract movie goers. Though I still miss those ushers or torch men whom we would look for in the dark and who would focus the beam on our seats. There was a certain charm about finding the nearest torch man, tripping your way up those mould ridden , worn-out, carpeted steps, invariably getting yelled at by an old person for stepping on her toes and, finally, managing to find your seat only to realize that it is too rickety and every time that you tried to recline, it creaked. Nowadays, we enter the auditoriums loaded with magnum sized popcorns packets and nachos or much more. During interval Italian or Thai or Mexican cuisine is delivered at your seats. Not too long ago, the maximum that men could do to impress their partners would be to buy wafers or peanuts in thin plastic packs from the guy who entered the hall during interval with a huge tray swung around his neck. Now the options are endless.

My reverie soon ends as someone has switched on the television in the room and I am jolted back to reality - Republic’s Arnab Goswami screaming on television about who pelted stones at whom during a religious procession and Rahul Shivshankar from Times Now assaulting our minds incessantly with the delusional theory of being the first channel to show the most horrific images of a war.

May be it is time to go to the cinemas after all!

DS

PS.Pics downloaded from internet.