An Eve-ning in theatre
Photo credit: xenia from morguefile.com
July 2010.
It was all started on thursday evening. I was chatting with my cousin on google chat, about friday’s newly releasing ‘nolan movie’ Inception. I am a big fan of nolan, leo and zimmer. We talked about how right combination of people needed to make excellent movie. We were hoping this movie to be highly involved, even trailers were looked promising. After digging up details about nolan and zimmer on imdb and wikipedia for hours, I slept late that night.
Friday begun with lot of work to do on road and a drizzle. Some courier work, some post office work, some banking work etc. I was back to home by 2 PM for lunch, and had a delicious lunch, which surely predicted full 3 hours sleep. But somewhere in my mind, the clock was ticking about Inception, and as an avid movie goer – I always save local theatre local number on my cellphone. Called them. Asked for Inception show timings. Hack, there was only one show at 5:30PM. which was weird, but It may be because Day and Knight was still running ( and quite entertaining too ) and Inception may not be a kind of movie that normal India public may like. I said “Ok” and hung up the phone. I never advance book any tickets. Never. I trust in luck.
So I dozed off and woke up at around 4:30 PM, mom was ready with orange juice. I drank it in single go and hurried for the movie, when I realised that my new pure leather boots were soaked and wet, damn this rain. I had to search, shout, digg, reach deep inside unknown no man’s land till I found my old chappals which were way too slippery, But that was my least of a problem, as I had to run to be on time. well, I have never been on time for movie, may be in one or two occasion. But this time, I wanted to watch it from start to end. As I came out, and started my bike, rain stopped, which was good but the road were still wet and hurrying on this road is sure way to hospital.
I started slowly, carefully avoiding wet sand on road which is prime cause of accident ( water adhering to sand particle creating highly viscous glass like solid ). I normally thought about a lot of thing while driving. My logic is, If you take off your mind from the thing you are working on, the outcome will be perfect. Its like getting drunk, reasons are blur and goal is clearer. And also, it comes naturally to me, being drunk, not having clearer goal.
I thought about different design of concrete road for better traction and better tire life.
I also thought about removing most of the reason for transportation in order to lessen the traffic.
I thought about how we can implement pure traffic discipline simply by removing horn from every vehicle.
I thought how dangerous it could be for pretty girls to roam around on road these days ( and its not only dangerous to them of course. ).
I thought about more greenery on footpath in order to stop cows from crossing the road.
I thought about silencer less vehicle in order to increase efficiency of engine and force people to wear helmet and headphone and because of that more traffic sense.
I thought about stop worrying about people and start using four wheeler more and more, which always have pink floyd and ghulam ali running in full volume.
And to top that,After thinking all this, I was still not even out of my own street. I scared about if I would be mad before I reach theatre.
And at that time, a girl, driving may be a honda aviator, zoomed pass me. whoo!! that was fast. that was boyish thing to do, zooming pass the girls driving their two wheelie, wait for them to overtake them and loop. But, she inspired me nonetheless, not to scare of silly rain and wet road and focus more on goal and destination. I increase from 40 to 60-70 kmph in that traffic, but by that time,
I reached theatre and forced to choose between two option. To Park on top or underground. Rain slowed down to zero by now, so I decided to park just besides the theatre which has a quickest way to ticket window. As I parked and went ahead to ticket window, I suddenly realised that my slippery chappals were more slippery than I anticipated. and suddenly all my concentration was on not to slip just right now. My speed suddenly decreased to one feet a second, may be even less. I was looking down, watching my step, slipping on right there was the last thing I wanted than suddenly again, that girl zoomed pass me. she was coming back from ticket window. I couldn’t move back suddenly due to my slipper to check-her-out. But We guys do have knack of knowing 90% about the girl in just one look ( and spend whole life figure out the rest 90% ). I took a deep breath ( to checkout the perfume which was good but couldn’t recognise ), and move ahead. There wasn’t any big line as it was working day and timings were odd too. So,I quickly get my ticket which made me realised that the show timing was of 5:45 and not 5:30. Give me full 15 minutes to spend however I want.
First thing I did while roaming around outside of the theatre was to check if that girl still in sight, but she was not. damn. and again, I dozed off in to my thought-world.
I thought about making theatre screen bigger than 100 feet height and 200 feet wide, give everyone personal headphone, I hate noise in movie. I like to watch movie alone most of the time, which give me solitude to go deep inside the movie ( the getting drunk thing you know…). and when movie sucks I absolutely hate it.
So, I thought about making a temple just before the theatre door, so if nothing else, our prayer could help the movie. I also hate realistic movie. I do live in reality, what I want in theatre is dream. That’s why I go there. for escape. for vision. for dream. But I don’t think many people go to movie theatre alone.
I thought about making movie longer. I thought about whole day movie. Kind of all seven part of harry potter in one day. from six in early morning to 12 at night. I also thought about let people copy more and more from other movie than using their brain.
I also thought about every producer giving me 5% of their profit for free advise I give, which was contradictory, so I moved on to another thought. I thought about doing it in theatre, but this was supposed to be an action movie, which was not contradictory, but still I moved on.
and Since, 15 minutes is not too much time to change the world, I decided to give it up and went inside the theatre.
theatre was cool. Ice cool chilled. Not many people to heat it up and there was cool outside too. The combine effect was really chilling. I straight went to my seat. Make sure that my mobile is not on silence mode. Confirmed. put it back. Get my wallet, open it, took out a 100 rupee note and put wallet back. stand up, excused a person setting besides me to move and went outside for a popcorn. I scared of pickpocketing. kind of freak out. so I normally took out money way before when I actually required it. Always careful of not anyone standing behind me, and if possible lean against wall all the time.
popcorn are way costlier in theatre, but can’t help it either. I started to came back with popcorn in my hand, when that girl, again, suddenly zoom passed me. She too was watching inception. I noticed when she took her seat in one row ahead than mine. Knight move location. Than I realised that, She was alone too. That was strange. A girl, alone in theatre. Not something I have heard before.
Never mind, the movie started. The magic began. The dream and the dream again and the recursion. Movie was good. Superb actually. Interval. I checked for that girl, who was sitting in a reading-on-a-couch position with two legs crossed and way over the row ahead, cool gesture, I decided to try it sometime.
The interval gave the break my idiot and nothing-to-do mind needed. It thought about every ‘wh’ question about that girl. It thought to go for another round of popcorn or not. It thought about why she too was wearing chappals. It thought against another round of popcorn and ask me for coke instead. I asked , damn it, now ? , but It insist. I went and came back with Coca-Cola.
The movie started, It was horrible, too much recursion and no stack overflow. It was in slow motion. It was less than 5 to 6 second in real life that was shown for full 1 hour after interval. Nolan has done it again. Superb and brilliant story. Quite hard one to understand but superb. It finished. There was silent in theater. Nobody spoke much, may be most of them still understanding what happen and how it happened. Slowly everyone went for exit. Normally, when the movie ends, I am the one of the first to go out ( can’t stand to wait in line…) , but I waited for that girl to go ahead of me, to have a closer look. ( remember that remaining 90% ). College bag. Bunk. Cares-nothing. Short-uncombed-hair. Speed. Raining. The rain was started and that was quite a heavy traffic outside due to office hour. I decided to wait just besides the door for five minute to give rain chance to stop. She just walked straight ahead in rain without even stopping or considering it, took her vehicle which was first in row and zoomed out of the theatre. My mind decided to write a detail entry here, just to see if I can or not. and As it turns out, I can.
