We all go to the cinema for entertainment. These days, with so much online booking and the same theatre screening many movies at different times, the charm of going to the hall, as it existed in my younger days, is missing.
Back then, the decision to watch a movie was only taken if it had passed strict censorship at home, no matter the official certification. It was never planned for a weekday, only the weekend. It would be an evening show, never a matinee or a night show.
For 6 pm movies, we would leave around 4 pm. Only public transport was used, as there were no Olas or Ubers. Our family of four would stand in line for almost an hour. We would purchase a chair ticket, not one of the bench or floor tickets. There were times when we had to go back as the tickets had been sold out before we reached the counter.
Family dramas, tragedies and art films were taboo. It had to be pure entertainment. We needed a change from our daily worries for a few hours. Why would I go to the cinema to see the same problems and continue to cry?
In the Army, while returning back to our posts, we would travel through transit camps. If we stayed at the Srinagar transit camp, we frequented the Broadway theatre located nearby. In the 70s, on one such stay, my company commander and I saw a movie together. Immediately after the film, he started quizzing me on what leadership lessons I had learnt from the situations faced by the hero. This gave me another perspective of seeing a movie.
Recently, my family and I saw Mission Mangal and discussed the teamwork displayed in their mission. The discussion was so deep that when the Vikram lander went incommunicado, my daughter immediately quipped, “Why didn’t they switch it off and on again?”
Lt Col (retd) R V S Mani
Email: colonel.rvs@gmail.com