Mad mad world of Cinema

While travelling back from Office, we were listening to some old songs on the FM Radio.
It reminded me so many things from the past.

Back in 60s, 70s and 80s, we were the regular viewers of matinee shows. Pune was well known for old talkies of single screens – Alka, Vijay, Bhanuvilas, Aryan, Hindvijay, Minerva, Capitol, Westend, Shrinath, Mangala, etc. Now it is being ruled by the multiplexes.

We were group of 6 / 8 friends who used to gather on every Saturday and Sunday.

In those days it was our favourite time pass to open up the local newspaper – Sakal and go through the list of old Hindi movies.

Matinee shows used to start at 10.00 am and special shows at 1.00 pm.

There were favourite theatres such Alka, Deccan, Vijay, Bhanuvilas and Hindvijay (which was renovated and renamed as Natraj).  Rahul was added to this list afterwards.

Westend theatre was on our list but when we were thinking about English movies, especially Western movies and action thrillers.

Most favourite actors to watch were Shammi, Shashi, Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor, Kishore Kumar, Amitabh Bacchan and Rajesh Khanna.

There were few movies which me and my group had watched ‘n’ numbers of times – Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi, Half Ticket, Baijoo Bawara, Anand, Abhimaan, Aradhana, Professor, Kashmir Ki Kali, and so on.

We had seen all versions of Devdas too. We had one friend and he was die-hard fan of Dilip Kumar. I still remember that I had watched Devdas with him – It was my first time and his was 50^th time! He used to rattle all dialogues along with all characters. Even doorkeepers at most of the talkies knew this friend well.

Joy Mukherjee was favourite of some friends and we had watched Love in Tokyo and other movies for purely sake of songs.

I still remember that once we had gone to a movie ‘Jab Jab Phool Khile’. It was Shashi Kapoor’s hit movie and was drawing huge crowds at all screens. We (our full family...my mother was great fan of Shashi kappor) went to Ratan Talkies and by the time we reached it was houseful. We decided to buy the tickets in black. It was going for Rs 7 per ticket, that means, more than double the standard ticket!  We got hold one of the blackmailer and asked for 5 tickets. He was typical ticket seller with red striped shirt with top 2 buttons open, golden chain and coloured handkerchief tied on the neck and red mouth with Paan he has eaten....we got the tickets in hand and rushed to the gate for getting in. He called my mother ‘Behenji, paisa to de do!’. We realised that in hurry we had not paid him. My mother took her purse out for paying him. She realised that she had forgotten her money at home. I had already paid for the Auto and was not carrying much money on me. All that we had together was Rs 11 against Rs 35!

He was generous guy...he told my mother ‘ Aapko main behen bol chukka hoon...abhi seedha andar jayeeye. Paiseki jarurat nahi, Fir Kabhi kamaunga! Ye pasie app rakh lo, ghar jane ke liye lagange’. We felt really happy with his gesture and enjoyed the movie.

Our group was also fan of Western movies and action movies. Right from John Wayne, Clark Gable, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Lee Marvin, Dean Martin, Franco Nero, Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cliff and Elli Walach...you name it and we had seen their movies, repeatedly. ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’, “DJango’, ‘El Dorado’, ‘Nevada Smith’, ‘The Professionals’, ‘Few Dollars More’, ‘The Mercenary’ and so on. In those days there was rage of Clint Eastwood and we never missed his movies – that wry smile and wrinkles near to his cold blue eyes was main attraction for all of us.  Lee Van Cliff was thrill to watch with his cold and wry expressions. Dean Martin brought some fun and comedy element in the typical western and Texas movies. We used to get thrilled by the heroes shooting exactly in the centre of forehead of the villains....and also shooting the hidden enemies without looking back!

I will write more about movies in the next blog.