Where have all the FB’s gone ?
“Ram Ram Bhaisahib”
You’re standing in a crowd and you hear an unfamiliar voice call out. There are times when you have an uncanny feeling that the person is addressing you.
This was one of those times. I looked around and noticed a portly, more than middle aged man dressed a dhoti kurta smiling in my direction.
Ram Ram Sahib, he repeated again.
It took me a few seconds to recall who he was. “Ram Ram Munimji” I finally acknowledged loudly.
“ I’m seeing you after years” he said, the broad smile still spread across his face. “you don’t visit Ravi babu’s shop in loha Mandi nowadays”.
I nodded my head slowly and replied “We talk on the phone occasionally….meet up once a year or so”.
Ravi was a schoolmate of mine who has a steel wholesaling business in Loha Mandi, the Iron and steel market.
” Ah, I remember the evenings you used to spend in Ravi babu’s shop…..we used to talk about films……”
Munimji was referring to the time when I used to regularly drop into Ravi’s shop, trying to figure out a career. After a while the conversation invariably turned to cinema, and Munimji who usually listened in from a respectful distance would step closer and enthusiastically join us.
“ Are you here to see a movie ? “ he laughed and asked me.
Munimji had noticed a cinema ticket in my hand. He then pointed out to the large hoarding of Singh is Kinng strung high on the wall we were standing next to and queried ” This one ?
We were standing outside a multiplex cinema hall. I had come to see a movie with my family members, they had entered the lobby and I had been walking out of the parking lot when Munimji accosted me.
” Are you also here to see a movie…..”
” No, no….this hall is a multiplex now. How can I afford to watch a movie here ?” . He chuckled loudly. I smiled back politely, embarrassed by his honest confession.
He continued ” I came to the stationery shop nearby and thought of meeting my cousin Rajender…….”
” I remember, Raju paan bhandar.…I don’t see the shop now”
” It’s been renamed as Raju’s Corner. As long as this was a single screen hall his pan shop was doing well. He survived the renovation period, the labourers were regular customers. Then the multiplex opened, the pan chewing viewers just disappeared. He now sells cold drinks and chips, but his is not the only such shop around. Besides, there’s competition from inside the theatre. Bhaisahib, would like to have a thanda ? ”
” Er…no…I avoid these cold drinks”.
“You must be getting late for the show”. He looked at his watch, it was showing 4.30 pm, then flashed a smile again. “Oh, these show timings, they’re so odd. It was so simple way back then, morning, noon, matinee, evening and night shows…..Aap chaliye….”
My mobile beeped. The movie was about to start. I SMSed back that I’ll be in there in Five minutes.
Munimji beamed.
” Bhaisahib, you remember how crazy I was about the First day, first show. On Fridays I used to arrive here at 10 o clock in the morning, was amongst the first in the queue. That was the only indiscretion in my work, Ravi babu and his father, God bless his soul, used to overlook it. We were regulars in the queue, we used to call ourselves the pehle din ke aff bhees……”
” aff bhees ? ”
” phront Banchers…..”
He had meant to say Front Benchers…FB’s.
” Yes bhaisahib, we were the front benchers, the front stall wallahs”.
He shook his head and continued ” I arrived in this city in ‘73. This hall had just opened then. A waterfall used to run across its roof. The first movie I saw here was Bobby, I think I saw it 4-5 times. The first time I got a seat on the extreme right, 2nd row. I had to watch the movie like this….”
He turned his neck leftwards and tilted it upwards. “The next time I opted for a seat on the extreme left and watched the movie like this”.
He reversed the direction of his neck.
” In most scenes Dimple….er…Dimpleji, she’s a naani now, was on the Left hand side of the screen. So, the second time around I got a better look at her”.
He paused and inquired ” Bhaisahib, have you ever sat in the front row of a multiplex?”
” Once” I replied “3rd row, right hand corner seats. Wasn’t bad, though. It was an action movie….Dus, I think. The characters were jumping all over the screen “.
He stared wistfully at the cinema hall, perhaps a few memories of cinema viewing were traversing across his mind. He turned to me and said
” You know what we call these multiplexes? We call them Rajdhani’s, inspired by those fancy trains. Bhaisahib, the Railways run trains which have all types of compartments, General sitting, sleeper, 3rd AC, 2nd AC and First class. Cinema halls were once similarly categorised. Front stall, middle stall, upper stall and the Balcony. Nowadays Multiplexes have only one category, hence the name Rajdhani”.
Although he said this with an earnestness in his voice I wasn’t the only one who laughed. A group of school going kids standing nearby guffawed.
In spite of age catching up with him, Munimji had retained his rustic sense of humour. I recalled the occasions when he used to entertain us with his take on movies of the day. By the time he used to finish a sizable crowd of workers would have gathered around him.
The School kids had surrounded him now. It seems he was going to take them on a trip down his very private memory lane.
” I have sat on the front seats of this hall for decades, totaling up God knows how many number of hours. I have seen Hema Malini dancing on glass shreds in front of a leering Gabbar, I’ve cried when Amitabh got hurt in Coolie, I laughed and laughed watching Jaane bhi do yaroon, and I enjoyed the chases in……”
I realised by now I would have missed out on Happy Singh’s Hen chase on the screen of Audi 4. I Interrupted him and asked ” Have you seen any new movies, Munimji?”
He wrung his hands and shook his head. ” I manage to catch up with a few on TV, but the long ad breaks infuriate me, and then there’s always some interruption, the phone rings, A truck has arrived and its unloading has to be organised…….”
He shrugged his shoulders. ” we used to pool in for a VCD player once in a while, that doesn’t happen nowadays. I do catch up movies when I go to Gorakhpur on my annual leave, I try to watch whatever is showing in theatre’s there. This year I saw Sarkar Raj, in the first week itself. But first day shows…..I haven’t seen one for eight years now.”
“It’s not that I can’t impossibly afford to see a movie in a multiplex, I could indulge in this once in a year or so…..but I wouldn’t fit into the crowd profile, I would be the odd one out. In those days the front benchers were all familiar people, we all belonged to a certain section of the society……. I would be very uncomfortable sitting next to a couple holding hands all throughout the movie. I wouldn’t be able to smoke a bidi in the corridor, nor have a pan packed. What terrifies me the most is the double round of security checks. What if my dhoti unravels while being frisked ? ”
The kids chortled and moved away.
” My son and bahu live in Mumbai. He’s a factory supervisor, the bahu also works. They tell me they watch a movie at least once a month at a multiplex. They’re riding the train of the new Indian economic revolution, I’m just someone who got shoved out on the way……”
He grabbed my hand, shook it rapidly and walked away, glancing upwards at the multiple number of movie posters. He stopped briefly, surveying the predominantly young crowd hanging around, and resumed walking.
My mobile rang again. Happy Singh had reached Egypt and I still hadn’t made it from the parking lot to the Auditorium.
I walked into the hall, noticing that in spite of being three fourths full the first three rows were conspicuously unoccupied . I sat down on the left hand corner seat in the first row, the screen loomed large and elongated in front of me. The usher came up, I read out my seat no. which was a few rows behind. He appeared astonished when I insisted I wanted to sit here.
Sitting in the front rows, Munimji would have loved to see the Pyramids from so close. He would have gasped looking at the Sphinx’s chiseled and eroded face. He would have gasped again on seeing Katrina prance around in the foreground in her bright pink skirt and top, and would have reminisced about the heroines he saw every Friday morning, years ago.
As Happy Singh and his friends continued with their activities in Australia, my thoughts kept returning to Munimji.
I remember his telling me once that he owed a great deal of his education to Hindi movies. From Geography to history to languages, he gleaned them from the screen.
He was a faithful follower of what ever stuff cinema dished out, right from the blockbusters of the 70’s to the ‘ torture ‘ of the 80’s. When the middle class deserted theatre’s in favour of pirated Video’s, he still remained faithful enough to watch movies in run down theatre’s.
He and millions of front benchers were the people who determined a movie’s fate. They were the one’s who saw a movie again and again, ensuring the halls remained ‘ house full ‘, eventually ensuing the movie became a hit. It’s ironical that a cinema ticket’s price led to their exodus from these very halls.
Nowadays the first weekend’s collections is critical for a movie’s success. What if, Munimji and his ilk were still to be able to add to this figure. Wouldn’t the collections soar ? Can’t we built no frills multiplexes for them? Will they ever be able to return to the front benches?
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Movies, News & Gossip, PROJEKT iVIEW, People, Thoughts , cinema halls, front stalls, multiplexes, Singh IS Kinng
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17 Responses to “Where have all the FB’s gone ?”
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I hate multiplexes.. i miss the mungfalis, cold samosas with watery tomato sauce and the smell of a beedi..
a very well written piece arun…….
it was a good read……..was kinda imagining the conversation….
thankfully the FBs have disappeared and have taken anil kapoor jackie shroff et al with them…..
Yes Anwar,
Thankfully the front benchers have disappeared and have taken away Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff with them.
All we are left with is people like Salman Khan, Vivek Oberoi and Ranbir Kapoor. Have fun.
Films like SIK are supposedly made for the “aam junta”. If the aam junta like Munimji in this article cannot see such films, why make them?/ classify them as “for the masses”/ leave all logical things aside in the story & water down its story under pretext of being comprehensible for masses/ advertise them as “loved by the masses”, when they don’t even watch these movies.
Great piece. I had this same conversation with myself about 10 years back when the first multiplexes were opening up. Being a perennial front-bencher, I was dismayed that I would have to fork out obscene amounts of money even for watching garbage from the front row. More than that, it was pretty clear that a certain type of whistling, cheering, cinema-crazy crowd was on the verge of extinction. This has happened now. The crowd has been segregated. You can still find them at single-screens, but mostly at the seedy ones tucked away in the dirtier nooks of the city.
For the family people, multiplexes are god’s gift because family members don’t have to rub shoulders with ‘boorish, uncouth lower-class’ people. They can watch movies in peace with nothing to disturb them except their cellphones.
This ease of enjoyment has come at a heavy price, if you look at the bigger picture. A whole section of the society has been just kicked away from a collective, democratic cinema-going experience. A place where the rich and the poor sat together to watch the good and the bad of Indian cinema, that place is no more. It is dead. And this is a big big loss. With so much hate and suspicion all around us, we desperately need places to sit together, laugh together, irrespective of our monetary status, religious status or geographical status.
A very well written article Arun.These are the people who made films like Sholay such big hits running continuously for 5 years.It sad that they are deprived from watching new films in theatres.”No frills multiplexes”-Not a bad idea!!!
Actually me too one of those FB’s who disappeared from the movie going scene. I am an IT professional myself, and i guess come under the yuppie, high spending category, but honestly to date i still balk at spending 500 plus for a cinema.
I also think that its got a lot to do with movie going culture too. Down South, we have been watching movies in fairly decent theaters without having to spend a fortune. In Kerala, even now going to a theater, would not cost you a fortune, but you still have the best movie going audience in India. And not just metroes like Chennai, Hyderabad or Bangalore, even if you go to level 2 cities like Coimbatore, Kochi, Vizag, Mysore, Mangalore you will find really good theaters, for which you dont have to shell out a fortune.
I think this is something i found lacking in other parts of India. Either you have to pay a fortune, to watch a theater in a multiplex, or watch it in some seedy theater. Why cant we have the kinda decent theaters, where you don’t have to shell out a fortune to watch movies.
Hey very true article!!!!!!!! I mean watching movie in a sophisticated multiplex is like……… dont have words to describe. i remember watching RDB on the day of its release in Chandigarh’s sigle screen( Chandigarh till now dont have any multiplex) and i cant describe the kinda energy was there when nubering begain, sheer pleasure and i remember catching the same movie in PVR Saket man the diffrence was there to c, hall in saket was also packed but ALAS!!!!!!!!!!!
Well written.. we are sailing in the same boat. Though i can afford a Multiplex, i hate going there as every time Ive been therre Ive been distrubed by people who just come for timepass, giggling or talking loudly on the mobile, even during a serious film like 15 Park Avenue. After paying so much, this pinches a lot…Single screen long live!!!! despite smoke, paan etc.. it was an enjoyable experience that one can never forget….Miss poeple like Munimji in the halls….
You know what? I’ve been contemplating an article on exactly the same topic while I was down sick last week. I come back and see my thoughts published much better than I might’ve put them across.
Well written.
Since I live outside India, I have watched very few movies on the big screen in India. But I have at least had the privilege of watching movies in both, single screens and multiplexes. The annoying factor has been spectators talking or making crude remarks in the middle of the movie; many times, it’s someone who has given up on the movie and makes sure the rest of the audience does the same. People laughing out loud is fine, but I’m yet to make peace with all the whistling and the rather elongated loud cheers. Now if it’s a mindless comedy or a timepass picture, it’s fine. But more serious ventures require a little more silence. I’m not quite sure how different it is these days though. Maybe things have changed in the last 4 years.
I don’t need to worry about it here, because rest assured, such annoyances will be kicked out of the theater hall. Besides, it rarely even happens.
Some of my best film watching experiences have been as a front bencher in Sathyam and Santham and Devi cinemas in Chennai . with a 10 Re or a 15 Re ticket, parking my old cycle in the cycle parking lot which is usually a shady corner behind all the cars and 2 wheeler parking lot. Sitting in the first 5 rows and watching an english movie like Speed is an experience - for the first 5 mins there is a neck pain that later disappears and the neck movements to match the characters movement (physical) from left to right and vice versa are soon forgotten and you seem so close to the action (like a fly in the wall) It is a gratifying feeling!!
@praneet, Aditi, Jaiganesh
If you stay in a metro take a trip to the nearest small town, you’ll be able to actually experience your nostalgia…..!
@Ashwin
Thanks
@Shantanu
The profile of cinema going audiences have changed, they add up to a formidable number-they are the masses now.
@ Ratnakar, Pratik
A visit to a multiplex with your family can put you back by a thousand rupees or more. After the initial weekend tickets are easily available, I wished the multiplexes would follow an aggressive discounting strategy. Mithun’s article above explains how theatre’s manage this in the U.S.
@Rocky, Anindya,
There was a time when cinema didn’t have a rival in the entertainment business. Repeating a movie was easy and done often. We can’t do it nowadays, how much ever we’d like to.
Yep,these people won’t be seen in cinema’s ever again, at least in the large cities.
@ Gunjan,
You’re lucky. Chandigarh still doesn’t have a multiplex, the only one is in Panchkula, a wee bit out of town.
@Narcisst
Thanks. Do write and send in a post on your thoughts.
I studied at a boarding school in a rural area in Haryana. The closest town was Karnal…around 9 km from our school. Karnal, at that time, had 5 theatres - Ashoka, Randhir, Novelty, Inder Palace and KR. We used to get a town leave once a month where we could leave for town early morning and return by dinnertime. The whole day was ours.
We used to follow a timed routine on those town leaves. Catch the morning show at Ashoka (the theatre closest to the bus stand). Leave the hall as soon as the movie ends and rush on a rickshaw to Novelty. Catch the 12 o’clock show there. Have lunch after the second movie and then quickly rush to Randhir or Inder Palace (these 2 theatres used to have showtimes of 1, 4, 7 and 10 pm). Catch the 4 o’clock show at either of them and then hop on to the 7:30 bus going towards school.
Ticket rates of 10 bucks for a balcony ticket at Ashoka and Randhir (the best of the 5) enabled us to spend the entire sunday for less than 50 bucks (including a hearty lunch at some dhaba). And there’s no count of the number of movies I saw in Karnal during the 5 years I studied in the boarding.
There were times when some highly anticipated movies would release (Mithunda was a serious craze for us in those days - didn’t miss a single mithun flick from 1985-90) and we wouldn’t get a town leave sanctioned. Those were the instances when we would embark on an unofficial town leave - just to catch the movie cuz. it might not stay till the next week. I remember this particular instance when we went to watch Shahenshah after the dinner break. There were no buses then and we hitched a ride on a tractor to get to the station. And we waled back from the theatre to our school.
Oh…so sweet are those memories.
Couple of typos in the comment above. In the last para, I wrote station for theatre….maybe I was too much into those memories. And I missed the k in walked right after that.
@ Narcisst
Wow, you and your pals had an amazing passion for cinema during your schooldays. I suppose a lot of us here on PFC have had similar adventures !