I was nearly 16 when, much to the embarrassment of my family and the mechanic at the garage where we stood waiting for the car to get fixed, big fat tears rolled down my face.
What had happened was this: We lived in an industrial township, a couple of hours from Udaipur. There were no theatres in the colony. There was at least one in the nearest town, Kankroli, but ‘respectable’ middle class families avoided it. My mother would never go there at any rate, and I certainly wouldn’t be allowed to go on my own.
But we did drive into Udaipur occasionally. Here, I could watch a movie in a real cinema hall. Or so I had hoped. But now the stupid car had broken down. I wanted to leave it at the mechanic’s, and go straight to the hall instead. But mom felt we must watch over the repair job, partly because she did not own that car, and partly because it was a dangerous drive back home. A badly fixed car meant a plunge into a rocky ravine.
Mom told me not to be silly. Who wept about missing a film? My brother was torn between grinning at my grief, and comforting me. Perhaps he understood. Perhaps he didn’t.
My craving for cinema halls was hard to explain. Cable TV had arrived. We could—and did—watch English and Hindi movies at home. But how I longed for the big screen! The dark hall, the ring of metallic bottle openers sliding across cola bottles!
I loved TV, and it wasn’t like I didn’t love reading. But my love for films was tinged with longing, perhaps, a little panic. Films ended and I could only consume them while they lasted. The story wouldn’t be carried forward, unlike TV soaps.
This may also have had to do with the cinema deprivation of childhood. We had lived in an industrial township in Rajasthan since I was about five. We did not own a TV set initially and even after we acquired one, the state-controlled Doordarshan (DD) was the only channel available. Growing up in the shadow of a cement factory, we waited impatiently for Sunday evening, when a black & white booster shot of song-dance-melodrama smashed into our grey lives.
Hindi films meant more than escape. They meant being allowed the richness of other people’s lives. I was a glutton for stories, spending most of my childhood negotiating with mom for more and more stories in any form, any genre. On Sunday afternoon, DD had a slot for regional films—Indian movies from languages other than Hindi, played with sub-titles. I watched those too. Sometimes, a cable guy would play a film on the colony network (usually this was Mr India, so all the kids knew each scene and song by heart).
But all of this was nothing compared to watching a film on the big screen. At night! In colour! The big screen in our colony belonged to the ‘workers’. Sometimes a travelling projectionist would show up and set up a large white pardah. Worn rugs were spread out on either side of the makeshift screen. Working class men squatted on the uneven earth, taking their uncushioned entertainment sans popcorn.
The families of white-collar workers joined in occasionally. They would carry out folding chairs and form a makeshift ‘balcony’ behind the rows of workers. But my mother wasn’t interested in films. Sometimes, we kids were allowed to go on our own, hauling two blue folding chairs. This is how I saw Aan Milo Sajna, starring Rajesh Khanna and Asha Parekh. I also remember being asked to come away in the middle of a movie once, after I’d spotted one of the factory managers hanging right at the back, near a hedge. He had a bandage on his head. He had been assaulted by the workers during a recent strike.
Oddly, I also remember clearly some films I have not actually watched. My classmates would see a film on the big screen the night before and at school, during the lunch break, they’d narrate the whole film to me. Scene by scene. Sometimes, they’d even remember lines of dialogue.
This is how I learnt to understand films without necessarily watching them. And I learnt to long for them, to wait for them, to woo and cajole adults into taking me to cinemas. When we went to Lucknow for the summer vacations, I drank at the fount of Hindi cinema with surround sound and peanut shells underfoot. This is how I saw Sadma, at the end of which I howled the place down, refusing to accept the injustice of such a story. This is how I saw Agni Sakshi, with my aunt squirming in the seat next to mine, muttering under her breath, “We shouldn’t have brought the kids.”
One of my most memorable film experiences was the time a bunch of us girls went to watch Hamesha (Kajol-Saif Ali Khan). We had been watching the promos, especially the song ‘Neela dupatta peela suit’. We knew the lyrics well and had already planned trips to the tailor to get ourselves retrofitted churidar-kurtas with dual-dyed chiffon dupattas.
(This story appears in the 03 May, 2013 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
thanks.
on May 2, 2013What a wonderful article.
on May 2, 2013Commendable Job i must say. U make me remind of my times ... i guess most of us do share the same story. Liked the way you pointed out little little things with serene vividity.
on Apr 26, 2013what a lovely piece!
on Apr 23, 2013