Memories down the movie lane : 1
Dhere dhere chalo sajana…
As the song played on the screen, me and my brother sat there in the small town theater, completely enchanted and enthralled by the moving pictures. Our lunch boxes packed for school lay empty on the next seat. They were supposed to actually have been eaten in the school. But here we were emptying our lunch while watching some beautiful images moving on screen. It was the early 1950s…
The movie bug came from our mother. A suave lady from Delhi who moved to a small town after marriage. A small town that had one theater. It must have been a shock for her. Here was a lady the whole town looked upto cause (a) She was from Delhi! (yes, those days being from Delhi had its perks) (b) She was a convent educated. That was a biggie. Women in the 1930s and before hardly could get into a english school, forget about an english convent run by the British. Somehow mom, and another friend of hers got their education from an english convent. And to top it all mom would throw out these weird english accents that would have given her british teachers a heart attack. But it was a small 1940s town. No one knew. And mom threw her weight around.
But the biggest reason the whole town loved mom was (c) She was a movie addict. And she would talk about movies. Then she would talk about stars. Then she would talk about all these actors and actressess. Then she would spice it up and make it look like she knew all of them on personal level. As if these stars would not eat anything upon arriving in Delhi, until they had met her. She was a master of weaving bull. And for years my brother and I, too were, under the impression that most of Bombay’s film stars were friends of my mom.
But then she was our mom. Sweet. Lost in her own world. A world of movies.
One day brother and I stood at our house gates, waiting for the women to walk out of the ladies club, so we could run to our mom. Slowly most of the ladies walked out, past us… but there was no sign of mom. We were like 5 years old. We asked one of the ladies, “Where’s our Mom?”… “Oh she left early. She’s gone to see the new movie”…
Hearing that brother and I started crying. We held each others hands and ran to the movie theater. We had no clue what a movie was until then. We had no idea what movie was it that our mom was seeing. And we absolutely had no idea what “money” was because right at the gates of the one cinema hall in the entire town, we realized it takes “two annas” to get in.
Since brother was the smarter one, he weaved a story to the gatekeeper “our mummy is inside, she has the house keys with her, we have come to get the keys”
Of course we were let in. The whole town knew we were the kids of the posh Delhi memsaahib. The theater owner knew us. He took our hands and walked us in… on the way we suddenly had two cold drink bottles in our hands. It paid to be known around in town.
We reached in. Mom couldn’t help laughing when she saw us. Two tiny kids crying for mummy and holding cold drink bottles in their hands. She got us seated next to her and told us to watch the screen….
So this was it… this is what Mom told us about. The magical world of movies… in this theater that had four walls, a roof, fans going grrr grr grrr… and on that screen there was this beautiful woman singing…
Hawa mein udta jaye mera lal dupatta mal mal ka
I think the movie was Barsaat… and Raj Kapoor stood there, we watching him for the first time…
Suddenly, we were now in the magical kingdom… the bug was firmly planted and it remains till today…
I think my next was the thrilling Hunterwali, where the actress jumped from one train to another and performed all sorts of stunts…
Time to take a break… never knew blogging would be so hard 
until next time…
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Sounds like the beginning of an interesting series,Looking forward to more
dadi ki kahanian, wah! pranam granma ji aur welcome to PFC. :D
small town single screen movie watching experiences are indeed some of the best!!!
Keep em coming granma!!
Riveting post! Though I am just a bit skeptical about ‘lunch boxes’ and ‘grr grr’ fans in the early 50’s. I mean, aren’t the lunch boxes a very post-Emergency phenomenon? And the fans must be new in the 50’s na?
Sorry to sound like a conspiracy theorist…but no names (town name, theatre name, author’s name) and selecting only the ‘popular songs’ to mention makes me a bit doubtful about the authenticity of it all.
But still, i repeat, riveting post.
And Barsaat came in 1949…while Hunterwaali came in 1935. Hoax!
Pardon my ignorance, but which film is this song from – Dheere Dheere Chalo Sajna? Never heard it!
@Varun,
it isn’t. it’s a very old lady writing these on our special request. And she isn’t seeing movies in the order they were released. Probably Hunterwali was her second film which must have re-released in her town.
oz!
“very old lady”
err… make it elderly lady, dude!
welcome to PFC granma! waiting to hear more of ur filmi outings!
@Oz
I will be glad if that’s the case. But names of places would certainly add to the stories. Regards to Grand-Ma!
PFC ko 1 nayi layer mil gayi …. lovin it. Best Wishes granma
Welcome to PFC, Granma. Do keep sharing your nostalgia with us.
Everyone here has grown up watching movies in single screen theaters, seems like those days are going to come back again.
I guess everyone remembers the first time they saw a movie as a kid, its amazing how clearly you remember those days.
The very first post I wrote on PFC as an iview author was on similar lines, it was titled ‘Tickets please’….ah, those days….
Welcome aboard granma.I’m again someone who’s very passionate about the single screen phenomena & still visit them whenever I get a chance.Do keep sharing your memories and filmy experiences with us.
Hi Granma. Must be nostalgic for you to remember the single screen theatres.
For us, those single screen theatres were a nuisance. It was like apathy towards us – most had stupid seats, mosquitoes all over and unhygienic food served during intervals, as well as smokers all around.
Multiplexes came as a breath of fresh air for us. But prices are still too high. We are making do with pirated DVDs. Multiplexes also meant absence of those weirdos who whistle and dance during songs.
Naani,
Ik bhoola sa geet yaad aaya, tumhari post padhkar..
Naani Teri Morni ko Mor Le Gaye
Baaki Jo Bachaa Tha, Saale Chor Le Gaye
ab Ye Dil Maange Mor..
@Pavan saab..
“Baaki Jo Bachaa Tha, Saale Chor Le Gaye”
Is it Saale chor or “Kaale” chor..for some reason..i have always sung this as “kaale” chor..
BTW..Welcome Granma..would love to hear more!!
Very nice article ……nostalgic, would love to see more articles by granma.
It is kaale.. saale was improvisation:)
what would you call copycats and those who robbed the indian film music.. kaale or saale?
Granma, welcome, would be glad to read your posts..Hunterwali..excellent!!