THE PVR TREAT

It wasn’t a dream come true for me, as I had never dreamt there is a place like this is the world. For the city-bred youngsters of today or the people fairly acquainted with the hustle and bustle of Bangalore, this probably would not mean anything; but it was a walk in the cloud for me. I am talking about my first experience in the PVR theatre.

Born to a freedom fighter (my father) and a frugal mother sometime in the 1940s, you can imagine my life was not very luxurious. My first memory of a movie theatre dates back to days when Technicolor was just beginning to make its way. The tickets would cost us half an anna (which was hard to earn by the way) and eateries were out of question. There would be a projector in the name of a movie theatre (we would call it Cinema Hall); no galleries, no balconies, if we were lucky we’d grab a couple of stained chairs, if not, the damp floor was good enough. I can’t recall many of the movies I watched, mainly because I barely could pronounce their names. They were movies about wars, and brave men and women. Mughle- Azam was one movie that I remember very well. I saw colored people for the first time on such a huge screen, they looked gigantic and real! There was a song where the dancer was seen in thousands of mirrors, there were also some very real war scenes with lots of horses, elephants and carriages. I watched them all, stunned, pleasantly daunted by the make believe world of celluloid. That was an incredible experience.

Having said that, my first experience at PVR was a hundred times “incredibler” than that day! The Oxford Dictionary might not have an adjective good enough to describe my emotions that day. The white movie tickets with yellow patches on it, gave me an idea that it would be very sophisticated (something that my little offspring pretends to be.. he he). I was a little nervous, not knowing why, but I did manage to walk on my own without holding my daughter’s hand. They made me queue up at a security check point, (I kept wondering about the reason for running security checks for a movie, they are meant for highways only). The security guard ran a metal detector all over me and frankly he did tickle me when he put it in my armpits.

What followed next felt very surreal; I felt a very soft green carpet soaking up my feet into its warmth as I took my steps inside the theatre area! Above my head there were many lights patterned in a way that the golden light melted and merged their way into the many smiling faces that had come to share that day with me. But that sight could not hold my attention for long, as my other senses started working and I could smell the titillating aroma of hundreds of eateries. If I my daughter hadn’t held my hand after we walked in, I would have forgotten all civility and jumped at them like a monkey broken free from a zoo and gobbled down everything in sight. “They are called food stalls”, my daughter told me. “I do not care what they are called; I care about what’s inside them!”, the reply came out before I could shut my mouth. She smiled at me (for a change), walked off to a counter near by and bought me some vegetable noodles. I was on a call with my elder daughter who was to deliver a child the next day; but the aroma of those noodles was so alluring that I could not continue my conversation with her. I grabbed the paper cone that read Yo! China Veg Manchurian Combo, and finished up every morsel inside that box in a matter of a few minutes.

Soon after that my daughter led me into to theatre hall and we took our seats. I had requested her for a packet of pop corn which she surprisingly obliged. Eating popcorns inside a theatre had always been one of my dreams and I was more than delighted to have that fulfilled. Although I was a little upset that she didn’t allow me to hold the popcorn cone all by myself worrying that I would eat more than I could digest.

I don’t remember the name of the movie that we were watching. It was one of those English films where the world comes to an end and only one person can save it. While watching the movie I could not stop wondering though “what if the whole world actually comes to an end? Are we, human beings, so engulfed in want of material possessions, measurable success and things of that sort that we neglect the one thing that makes us different from other species- humanity?”

I didn’t enjoy the movie much as I could barely understand it, but the evening on the whole was dream like. I missed my wife, who has been my partner in crime for over quarter of a century. I wished that I could hold her hand and share that moment with her because I knew she would have been very, very happy to share something so fascinating with me.

Of ghosts and trees and bamboos and piss

Growing up in a land blessed with nature’s bounty is something very few people are privileged with these days. Staring at the concrete jungle that my daughter lives in makes me miss the lush green fields of my birth place Lakhimpur. Well, from an investor’s point of view, the place hasn’t much to offer except for a business route that connects Arunachal Pradesh to Assam. But, for a man who has seen the place from his infancy Lakhimpur is a haven of love, familiarity, miles and miles of scenic greenery with the cuckoo singing in glory and most importantly a legion of cheerful memories.

Life wasn’t as it is today for kids back then. We didn’t have I phones, MP3 players or play stations back then. Not that I am complaining, our games and pranks were quite COOL too, although it would be tough for kids cannot relate to them today.
I clearly remember we used to have bamboo trees in our backyard and some prankster, someone just like me was upto some notoriety. It is embarrassing to mention his act, but if I don’t it will drain the fun out of my story. There were these bunch of kids actually who would come to chop down our bamboos, worse they would pee on them (kind of a gang war thing actually).

“This calls for some serious measures”, I told myself.

So one fine day, I hid behind the bamboo bushes and waited for the strikers to hit. The kids gathered at our bamboo bushes for their ritual mischief. They saw one bamboo of the branches lying flat on the ground and perhaps decided to urinate on it before chopping it off, and so they did… pee on it.

The moment their nitrogenous discharge fell on the branch, Whooosh, the bamboo branch suddenly rose up to the sky, all on its own, as if it was offended by the kids. It barely missed hitting the kids on their heads. The rising bamboo created quite a havoc as no one in our village had even seen anything like that before. The phenomenon that the kids witnessed seemed supernatural to their rustic knowledge. I sat there watching and much to my delight and the kid’s disgust, the mysterious bamboo branch actually spilled drops of their own urine on their faces as it rose. The kids, mortified, dispersed like startled ants and vanished out of my sight within minutes.

Word soon spread that the bamboo trees in our backyard are haunted by evil spirits. People started staying away from them, while the old and the wise suggested that we perform puja for it. With lesser human proximity the bamboo bush ended up being an abode for monkeys which continues to be so even today (as if we didn’t have enough trouble already). The little bastards however stopped chopping our and molesting our trees and dared not to cross even a miles distance from the trees.

Meanwhile I forgot to mention that while I was hiding behind the bushes, I had actually pulled the Bamboo branch and held it down while waiting for the boys. The moment they pissed on the branched, I let of the branch scaring the crap or in this case piss out of them.

I know it’s not a great story, just a personal feat, a treasured memory that cheers me up amidst my daily dose of bland food and nauseating medicines.