3 Months & 1 Friday Ago

Fridays over the past few years of my life have been various degrees of eventful - from extremely, really, very, pretty, quite to, on the rare ocasion, un. In each of those cases the last working day of the week for quite a few people was, for me, intrinsically linked with cinema. Now unlike many people including quite a few of my schoolmates, I haven't always been a fan of the medium - in fact, before the turning points in my life, I could count the number of films I had watched on the tips of my fingers and toes, literally (for the number of films I had watched in the hall upon its first theatrical release in India, just one hand would have sufficed). But over the years especially the recent few, things have changed drastically - as has my life and likings.

So, Fridays. Of course, one certain occasions, the action shifts one day back - mostly paid previews of big banner releases that have hardly ever been worth the money except that I was, in each case, bound to spend the same amount a day later so why not? And besides, I love to give myself the option of writing a review free from any subconscious bias that might be due to exposure to the opinion of others. Not that I always end up writing that review - I just like the option to exist. And in any case, there's no stopping the opinions that keep getting formulated on the fly within the confines of my skull. Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, Fridays have always been interesting but last Friday has forced me to add one higher layer on top of the adjective cake - insanely. 10th September 2010 was special - it was more than just tumultuous, hectic, exhausting; it was - to borrow a couple of words from a popular sitcom - awesome and legendary rolled into one. It was the start of a long weekend with lots happening, not least of which was the release of a much awaited film.

So while Ramzan drew to a close even as Ganpati pranced in, so did "the last action hero" and the eternal hot favourite of the seeti-maar, toplining a deliberately over-the-top out-and-out masala film made by the brother of the now well-established filmmaker known for his set of visually engaging, obvious metaphor laden, potentially cult movies. Jama Masjid's Shahi Imam's declaration of Eid-ul-Fitr being on Saturday resulted in some confusion as to which day ought to be the holiday - Delhi as always decided to wait and watch and then go with the official announcement, but neighbouring UP including Noida and Ghaziabad stuck to Friday; Bombay and the rest of Maharashtra also went with Friday and topped it off with a holiday for Ganesh Chaturthi the following day - thus taking the opportunity to celebrate a long weekend full of fun, festivities and film. Oh yes, the film. For a moment there, I was lost in the flood of too many F-words. So having gone to the movies at various spots across two of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, I have learned quite a few things, the only one relevant to this post being this: a loud, raucous film like this, there's only one way to enjoy - in the midst of uncouth preferably rustic gentry at a dilapidated single screen cinema hall that looks like it may fall down at any time especially during the screening of such a film when any of the loud hoots seem capable of doing the trick.

Of course, you can't have it all so in your mind you need to weigh the pros against the cons and go for a solution which involves the least amount of compromise. Now before I proceed any further, you need to know certain things in order to get the proper perspective. I stay in south Delhi, an area which in an era long forgotten was populated by hard-working government officials of different designations. Present-day south Delhi is, well, a bit different. All that you need to know really is that where I am at - the south-western extremity if you exclude the cantonment, the airports and the area between the highway-turned-expressway and the yet-to-be-electrified railway track that runs parallel to it - there are only 2 single-screens left, one of which is the flagship single screen of the most hideously expensive multiplex chain of the country (hint: expand PVR). Almost all my Fridays involve a visit to this, since I can walk down to it thus nullifying the difference in price between the two; on a select few occasions, I have chosen to go to Sangam, which offers a truer single-screen experience if you know what I mean.

You don't? Alright, consider this: I was watching the recent Akshay Kumar starrer Priyadarshan film Khatta Meetha there, and both Rajpal Yadav as well as Johnny Lever were greeted with standing ovations the first time each of them appeared on the big screen. Other than that, the seats are in deplorable state, the food is so dry that it refuses to go down even with help from the cold drinks which, other than the water, are the only edible products available. Of course, one really convenient option exists in central Delhi that offers cheaper tickets, better seating, acceptable refreshments and tends to screen oddly obscure indiesque short features - but I'll talk about that later. So, I had made a conscious decision to avoid the nearest single screen because, other than the fact that I have been there so many times I know exactly how many rows it has per class and overall, how many seats each of those rows has, which ads shall be screened prior to the start and which during the interval of the film as well as the duration of each of the gaps and other segments, due to the somewhat restrictive pricing policy, the crowd tends to be multiplexish.

So, me and my friend, we deliberated through Thursday. Ah yes, the friend. I for one don't mind watching a film all alone but it's always great to have company, esp. when it is a great friend. Back in Bombay, it almost always used to be the Delhiwallah from my original batch who shared my enthusiasm of watching every crapfest of a film on the Friday of its release or, even better, before. And here in Delhi, it is this old, school friend with whom I really started going to the movies back during the last year of our school. Of course, a lot of water has flown under the bridge - he is working now and is not available on Fridays and I just can't pass up the opportunity of watching what I want to watch first day, first show so I end up going all alone. But last week was different - his office is in Noida, so he got the UP Eid off on Friday. So the day before, I told him some of my film-watching theory and before long, we were watching the last few seats at Delite disappear before our very eyes owing to nothing but our laziness and also a gross underestimation of demand.

So then, finally onto the events of the Friday in question. What finally transpired that day was a series of events each so worthy of a complete narrative in itself that it would be a crying shame, nay, a crime to give any of them anything other than an intricately detailed treatment. Of course, the current length of this post does not escape me at all so I shall take your leave now, dear reader - later.