I miss the old fashioned movie hall or cinema theatre as we used to call it. The drama unfolded much before the lights faded and the burgundy curtain rose to lusty cheering. It began at the gate with hustling queues, eager touts and an occasional angry abuse or punch. The cinema social order was differentiated by colour ... yellow tickets for the front stalls, pink for the middle class, green for the upwardly mobile and blue for the dress circle. The colours were interchangeable but not the seats.
Cinema theatres had balconies and dress circles. You could stand at the balcony and hurl pop corn at the working class or you could sit with the front benchers and whistle your lungs blue.
You sat through black and white Films Division documentaries, usually about polio or birth control or similar fun stuff. You sat through "trailors" and then you waited with bated breath as the flickering film came alive in Eastman colour. You perched precariously on the rickety seat with the ripped out foam and tried to keep your mouth closed as Amitabh Bachchan took a bullet in his gut.
And the lights would go off. The darkness would be rented by whistles, boos and an occasional yelp. You swore under your breath and fought for oxygen. And then you would hear it ... the unmistakable whirr of the movie projector coming alive again ...
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2010s: A Roundup (Books)
4 years ago
3 comments:
Do you remember how the curtains would draw apart before a film? The ones I remember were deep red, long and velvet. With frills. Buying tickets was never so bad. You could rush 5 minutes before a movie and buy it in black. Long long before cellphone interruptions, there were people with witless comments who’d make sure the entire theater has it heard. It used to be such a huge part of a movie-goer extravaganza. After the movie, when you talk about the movie, you’d also talk about who added what sound effects and you’d remember the funny man in the stall who said something about Jackie Shroff and his colourful tshirt. Social merit aside, everyone was a part of the movie, everyone was involved. Those were the days!
The soggy popcorn, the rickety armrests, the tall men getting seats in the row in front of you... all just vanished into insignificance as Amitabh lit a dynamite with his beedi (or did he light his beedi with a dynamite)!
Those were the days my friend. And the hand-painted posters ... they are a dying art form now.
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