தின‌ச‌ரி 4 காட்சிக‌ள்

Cin­ema should make you for­get you are sit­ting in a the­ater — Roman Polanski

Dis­claimer:
This is def­i­nitely not an auto­bi­og­ra­phy to test your patience [ ச‌த்திய‌ சோத‌னை ‍ — ப‌டிக்க‌ற‌வ‌ங்க‌ளுக்கு :) ]. Just reg­is­ter­ing my thoughts about my home­town theatres.

Gents, Ladies, bench, chair, bal­cony, fire, exit, pro­jec­tion room, காலைக்காட்சி, இப்ப‌ட‌ம் இன்றே க‌டைசி,வ‌ருகிற‌து, வெற்றிக‌ர‌மான‌ இர‌ண்டாவ‌து வார‌ம்– All these words resem­ble my glo­ri­ous movie days.

The movie expe­ri­ence is con­sid­ered best, only when it is watched in a big the­atre [ I am not a fan of mini, cine, baby kind of the­atres ]. The psy­chol­ogy of watch­ing in the big screens is that it con­trols us rather we con­trol­ling the film with a remote. We com­pletely loose the con­trol watch­ing a movie in a the­atre [ that’s the key of enter­tain­ment — for­get­ting the EMI/assignments/family/office ]. The DVD or home the­atre expe­ri­ence is just a bogus alter­nate to cin­ema, where you pause the video, skip a song, con­scious about fan/AC speed, some sound in the kitchen [ கேஸ் வாஸ‌னையா வ‌ருது ?! ], tea break, kid run­ning out with remote [ BOLT ப‌ட‌ம் போடுப்பா :) ]. The worst form is watch­ing a movie in the TV chan­nel with 50 adver­tise­ments in between, in an omni bus or a car DVD sys­tem. That’s not the true cin­ema expe­ri­ence, I call. Let me rec­ol­lect some of my movie hall expe­ri­ences in the past.

My home­town didn’t have many places to spend time for enter­tain­ment. Either the place had to be a tem­ple, school ground or a cin­ema the­atre. By default, our first choice in a free time was movie and most of the time we were free :). We didn’t have biased views, fil­ter­ing, pre­view, review[ tor­tures like film4thwall :) ] talk­ing about the movie. We just exper­i­mented what­ever the junk it was. It was the glo­ri­ous late 80s where so many films were released in a month. That’s when IR was scor­ing for all the movies. We used to watch any flicks rang­ing from ‘Karimedu karu­vayan’ to ‘Kaaki chat­tai’, ‘Selvi’ [ Devar films with dog in it ] to ‘Sri­Ra­gaven­drar’. We used to applaud for just show­ing Rajini photo advt card in the inter­val [ Sky­lab tai­lors :) the first card used to be தின‌ச‌ரி 4 காட்சிக‌ள்- Sathya arts fol­lowed by புகை பிடிக்காதீர்].

If Sun­dara Vinaya­gar crosses our bus stop, that’s the final warn­ing for us to run towards the the­atre. [ we used to tell the time by see­ing the bus — பெரிய‌ விஞ்ஞானி இவ‌ரு ]

Srini­vasa :

It was the class A the­atre [ Bench – 1 Rs., Chair Rs.2.50 The school teach­ers used the bal­cony Rs. 3.50 class ha..ha..]. Any new movie [ at least 4 months old ! ] comes to this the­atre first. I watched all the movies in my school days sit­ting in almost all the rows of the the­atre.. We pre­ferred the first 10 rows. I need to watch the movie from the white screen to white screen. I can’t digest get­ting into a movie that was already started. [ I was glad to see Woody Allen say­ing the same dia­logue in ANNIE HALL – என்ன‌ ஒரு க‌னெக்க்ஷ‌ன்.! ]

The beauty of this the­atre was the morn­ing shows were ded­i­cated for clas­sic films like Moon­dram pirai, Naadodi man­nan, Manohara, Vee.Pa. Kat­tabom­man etc., The reg­u­lar shows were the new films of that time like Udhaya geetham, Vaidehi kaathirund­haal, Mud­hal mariyad­hai, Maapil­lai [ Some exam­ples.. For the full list, I may need the help of Film news Anandhan :) ].

“Thaai veedu” was the first film, we [ I had a great com­pany — my cousin ] started watch­ing by going to the the­atres on our own. Till then, we were taken through the ladies counter and then get shifted to the gents. That’s how I ended watch­ing enor­mous num­ber of movies in my school days. We were allowed to see almost all the movies. How­ever, only mar­ried cou­ple used to go to Bhag­yaraj movies in the 2nd show [ ரெண்டாம் ஆட்ட‌ம் ].

I remem­ber all Kamal­has­san, Rajini, Mohan movies were released in Srini­vasa. The unique­ness of the town was every­body liked Rajinikanth movies and never allowed a Kamal movie to run for more than a week [ except some real block­busters like Aboorva sagod­harar­gall, Kakki chat­tai . Guna ran just for 3 days.. Think about Hey Ram ! ]. On the con­trary, Rajathi Raja ran 5 weeks house­ful in all the 3 the­atres, simultaneously.

Due to ill fate, the the­atre is con­verted to a mar­riage hall. I don’t know whether the groom thinks that his mar­riage is going to be like an action thriller in the future. :) . I couldn’t digest that news and started avoid­ing that area, when I visit my hometown.

Balan

It’s the typ­i­cal old type the­atre which has got front ele­va­tion look­ing like a glo­ri­ous build­ing and on the back side it’s the usual rice mill model of cin­ema hall. This is class B the­atre wherein medium films were screened [ Rama.Narayanan, TRa­jen­dar, Suresh, Murali ] and some­times old movies were screened [ re-release ]. Before ren­o­va­tion in the 80s, it had the para­pet wall run­ning between the ladies and gents sec­tion [Remem­ber the fight scene in the film ‘Kozhi koovudhu’ ]. It’s highly inevitable that I use exam­ples from cin­ema to explain any­thing :). The small boys who sell snacks [ அர்ஸ்ஸ்ஸீ முறுகேய்ய் ] and ‘goli’ soda [ I used to col­lect ‘soda’ goli ] in a wooden crate, used to eas­ily jump between that great wall of the hall [ சோடாய்..க‌ல‌ரேய் ].

I remem­ber watch­ing 1000-il oru­van, Billa, Kazhugu [ காத‌ல் என்னும் கோயில் பாட்டு கேட்டிருக்கீங்க‌ளா ?] Thillana moganam­bal, Rathak kan­neer, Vijayakanth kind of action movies in this the­atre. The other good thing was this the­atre was the next com­pound to our great [?!] school. Next to the Kabadi ground, we had a small tree on which we climb and lis­ten to movies in the lunch break [ it was some funny noises – mostly cli­max fights ]

Rajalak­shmi

It’s a class C the­atre where nobody had a clue what the film screened in that the­atre [ even if you watch the movie, you can’t under­stand :) ]. It’s the place where typ­i­cal Thiya­gara­jan, tel­ugu dub­bing, ani­mal based action movies, revenge flicks were screened. I watched Andha oru nim­i­dam, Solla than ninaikiren, eeety [ Extra Ter­res­trial இல்லை‌ங்க‌.. இது Vijaykanth padam ].

My Uncle had a habit of watch­ing movies in this the­atre espe­cially the last day of a movie. The iden­ti­fi­ca­tion is that they paste ” இப்ப‌ட‌ம் இன்றே க‌டைசி” on the exist­ing poster. His logic was that he’ll get a chance to watch the trailor for the next movie. [ வெவ‌ர‌மான‌வ‌ராமாம் ]

Tour­ing talkies :

The evening show starts with a MGR song “1000 கைக‌ள் ம‌றைத்து நின்றாலும்” and then some songs till the crowd gath­ers. It had low class [ sand ], bench, alu­minum chairs as the high class and the rags as the side door­ways. The entire fam­ily was once taken by my father for “Bhaa­gap piriv­inai” [ Ada che ! ]. In fact, I was com­pelling him to take us to ‘Vikram’ that day. I stopped ask­ing him then. I remem­ber see­ing Vidutha­lai, Bala nagamma, Kaali, Mul­lum malarum, Maya mothiram in that theatre.

I have been watch­ing the fall of the­atres and highly dis­heart­ened by the same. Slowly, my child­hood the­atres started includ­ing Eng­lish movies [ not the good ones ! ]. They didn’t get the mass as they used to get. I remem­ber peo­ple com­ing cycles from the vil­lages a few KM away from the town. Rajalak­shmi was gone long back and it’s still not demolished/reused. Sim­i­larly, for Balan – it’s just bushes there.

The only the­atre which is still live is Pad­ma­vathy [ mini the­atre ] – recently, we were just 15 peo­ple watch­ing the movie TN07 4777. I was not watch­ing the movie [ crap ] and started rewind­ing the list of movies, I saw in that small­est the­atre of my town [ Idhay­athai Thiru­dadhe, kodi parakudhu..]. I remem­ber they started the first show sen­ti­men­tally with திருவிளையாட‌ல்.

I’ve watched movies in the­atres rang­ing from tour­ing talkies to the the­atre in New York [ PVR screens in Ban­ga­lore is a real good expe­ri­ence — Pudupet­tai, Vet­taiyadu Vil­laiyaadu ]. Films are not only just about enter­tain­ment but the mem­o­ries asso­ci­ated with the­atres, the friend(s) we go with and other things mat­ter a lot. I still remem­ber see­ing ‘Aboorva sagod­harar­gall’ mul­ti­ple times along with the Kamal narpani man­dram friends [ They dis­trib­uted Kamal photo and can­dies to the audience ].

That’s why I became very emo­tional when I watched ‘Cin­ema Par­adiso’ — I saw my home­town in the Ital­ian town “Gian­caldo “. It’s a masterpiece.

‘The­atres in Pondicherry’ is another nos­tal­gic topic where 22+ the­atres were run­ning and now there are just 6 the­atres exist­ing in Pondy. That’s a sep­a­rate story.

–Toto

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1. Chair, Bal­cony and Box