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Those were the days when the madness was just started in a small sleepy township of Jharkhand.Our local cinema hall was showing “DDLJ” every five shows in our local cinema hall. This popularity of the film has created so much craze that we bunked our school and went to see the film. The film had a great impact on us and consequently…we saw “DDLJ” continuously for a week. Though it was not possible to get a ticket because buying a ticket from the counter is like fighting a war. . First, the long queue to reach to the counter and the counter had very small space in which we had to put our hands to fetch out the tickets and you have had only two seconds to do that otherwise our clothes would be torn down.. Besides there was a huge risk in getting into that since we could be recognized easily. So we attempted a trick and surprisingly it worked. We got a chance to treat one of the theatre attendants with tea samosas and he agreed to allow us an entry. But it was not easy. we always used to miss the song “mere khwabo me” since we had a back door entry and are allowed to enter only after the genuine ticket holders. This was quite disappointing for us but we were out of choice.
Cut to Inside..The theatre’s atmosphere was altogether very different..Something we never experienced.. The whole theatre used to became a factory all of a sudden- the factory where different types of sounds were being designed and produced. It never made a difference whether there is a Shahrukh or a Sunny deol is delivering his dialogues. The clapping mixed with whistles were enough to suppress these dialogues. The same thing happens with the hot scenes also. The tapori type guyz were specialist in passing creative remarks to the heroine.. They never became partial about heroines..they used to treat all of them equally..
Cut to Interval and every one leads towards the toilet….
The stains of gutkha and paan and the lyrical lines written in the toilet was another interesting visual for us.…
Whenever I thought of this crowd I felt that they were the audiences who spend their 50% pocket money for cinema…and some additional percentage in buying the audio cassettes too….we were also one of them…we used to change our school uniforms to the t shirts which we always used to keep in our school bags. We always supported some political activities (like bandh, morcha, protest) to happen in the streets ..so that our school should remain closed and we can go to the cinema hall.. We knew they never closes the cinema hall…Ya we had to wait for weeks for a new film even the film was released in Delhi or Mumbai, but we never missed any new film…. we used to watch any movie. be it “jeet”, “raja Hindustani” or sunny deols “ajay” and any Ajay devgan starrer….We also befriended with the man who used to announce the film on the streets in his theatre’s jeep…We consider him as a real hero….We loved his style of speech…dekhna na bhoole rozaana char show me…bhaiyon or behno(don’t forget to watch the film …)…and he intercuts with the film’s promotional song… …so like other guys we were also in the grip of movie mania…Since Harivansh Rai Bachhan’s “Madhushala” has left a great impression on me, I used to relate the line of “Madhushala”to that cinema hall…like “bair karate mandir masjid mel karaata cinema hall”(The religion divides and cinema hall unites ) “din me holi raat diwaali roz manaata cinema hall” (In Cinema hall there is Holi in day and Diwali at night daily)…At times, Whenever Back door entry was not possible we did not hesitate to fight with the local boys for the ticket at the ticket counter…but we never bought a cinema ticket in black -one thing that we were very proud of .this was against our principle.. If we succeed to buy the ticket it would feel like a big victory and we used to enter into the hall as Alexander who has just conquered the world
Then I came to delhi. Delhi’s PVR Saket has some seat priced at only Rupees Seven. This was on my budget but it was also not been easy to get out that ticket since here also had a long queue. and my friends had left behind in my small township so I was alone there but never disheartened…I used to stood for two hrs for that ticket and at last I succeeded…They had another queue for girls also but it used to very small so they were willing to help us, they are so generous. Delhi has once again ignited the spark and Lajpat nagar’s “sapna” and Nehru Place “Paras” was another cinema halls we used to watch movies frequently. But the Theatre I liked most was Chanakya Cinema which had an amazing sound system..Even PVR Priya don’t have that quality today what Chankaya has…. CP’s Regal and Plaza are other cinema halls we used to watch movies whenever we go to CP.
Today’s multiplex culture has changed the whole fun of that movie viewing experience but it’s a fact that those audiences and those cinema halls were the first to create a passion for cinema on us.