Diary Of a Moviefreak

After giving it a thought for some time, I realized that I will not be doing justice to my blog if I don't write something about Movies, my second love. It's a different thing that I am yet to find my first love. And being the self-declared freak, I had to write it out of compulsion from some of my not-so-freak friends. But hold on, I will not be writing here about the history of cinemas or some run-of-the-mill movie reviews. There are a lot more people sitting out there for the same job and some of them in fact get paid for it. But instead I thought of sharing some of the aspects from my past and present experiences related to movies.

My earliest remembrance of the movies dates back to the time of video cassettes when the compact discs had not seen the light of the day. The sight of the VCR with black colored cassettes in my father's hand on a Saturday afternoon used to bring in a sense of joy which is very hard to replicate. The movies used to be a mix of my regional and Hindi language. And the icing on the cake would be the horror flick from Ramsay Brothers which would be kept at the end to be played after dinner. I can still visualize myself sitting literally at the edge of my father’s seat anticipating the ghost to come out of the VCR. Perhaps this was the thought process which went on to be made as the Ring Series of movies. The first movie I saw at the theatres sans my family members was after I entered into my college. Soon after, there was no looking back and the passion grew stronger and stronger.

The movie audience in India can be broadly divided onto three categories. The first lots are those who absolutely love movies and don't want to miss out on any. They follow their instinct for choosing a movie to be watched at the theatre or not. The second category consists of people who think twice before watching a movie at the theatre. They usually go by the reviews in newspaper, internet as well as from the people in the first category before arriving at a decision. Their probability of watching a movie at the theatre can be deduced from a complex polynomial equation with a lot of variables. Now we are left with the third category of people who actually never give a damn about movies. They are least concerned about the abs of the heroes or the hot bods of the heroines. But being related to the first two groups in some way or the other compels them to experience the reel life once in a while. 

Movies on their part have undergone a sea of transformation in the last two decades. But given a choice I would put them into three different genres. The first ones are those which are best enjoyed with friends. There is no dearth of such movies nowadays. The second are the ones which are best enjoyed with someone special beside you. Such movies from the house of Johars and Yash Raj banners create a sense of urge to experience the reel life in real life, being fully aware of the fact that, it would never be the same. The last category are the ones which you can enjoy with your family. This variety has become a rare species during recent times. The probability of such a movie at the theatre can be equated to the probability of Advani being the Prime Minister of India. But any attempts to mix or switch between genres can lead to irrecoverable damages. It can leave such bad taste which is very difficult to wipe out from the memory.

Another aspect of the story is the movie viewing experience in the Multiplexes which are spreading like mushrooms in every nook and corner of the town. Compared to the single screen theatres, the multiplexes leave the movie-going audience spoilt for choice. But the irony being sometimes none of the choices is worth going for. Still the movie freaks manage to find their way into one of the screens. Now inside the theatre the seats are symmetrically arranged like a matrix with numbered rows and columns. But the people still fail to solve the regular matrix and end up in a different row. The situation gets more chaotic when the mistake is realized after the movie has started. But the tragedy doesn't end up there. Once into their designated seats, the mathematics of settling into the final positions goes for a toss when the person next to you is of opposite sex. Here comes into action the theory of permutations and combinations with the prime condition that two persons of opposite sex can sit together to watch a movie, provided that they are related in some biological way. Now I will not be going into the deeper chemistry of this and leave it for you to decipher.

Once everybody settles down and the light slowly fades away, the next sequence of events is fully governed by the turn of events on the movie screen. In case the plot is interesting, the people stay glued to their seats with some occasional cheers and claps. But if the movie fails to tickle their bones, the smartphones and BBMs come to the rescue. The events on the giant screen get superseded by the ones on the mobile screen. The half-time reviews, the current GPS location, the identity of the companion sitting next etc. etc. gets flashed across all social networking sites. And in case some freak happen to read and comment on the post in real time, the chain of conversation goes on till the end of the on-screen events. And if the situation gets quite unbearable, some of them take the bold step to walk out of the exit door. They keep on cursing the movie and the amount of time and money on it till they end up at the theatre for a fresh movie in the very next week.

Now to sum it up, the movies have been a part and parcel of my life in some way or the other. It has become such an integral part that I manage to relate any real life situation to some movie dialogue or song sequence. Perhaps that’s what it takes to qualify as a freak. The urge has become so strong that a week without movies seems like a void. Missing a movie at the theatre feels like missing a train at the station. Now this is what I meant about relating reel life to the real life. Though some people find it as an amazing talent, it has become quite natural to me.  It’s like you can take me out of the movies, but not the movies out of me. Ok it seems like I should stop here before it gets too filmy. Hope to see you all at the Movies....