Sunday, May 27, 2007

Where Is The Mid-day Moon?


I have been pleading with my husband to take me to a movie,,since...one and half months..(yeah...that long)...,You see,..he promised to take me to see one atleast once in a month in a fit of magnanimity when anasuya went away for her M.S.and i found myself quite alone and twiddling my thumbs......Now he is whiling away with lame excuses...It is admirable...the ingenuity with which finds reasons to justify himself..." let"s go on week days,..sundays and saturdays are too crowded"..." On week days ofcource he has his work and could not free himself....Ofcource, i don"t grumble..Those days are over...passe.... when one felt really enthused to watch a movie,..for fun..for it"s own sake...for the excitement it offered...for the pleasure of watching our favourite stars and directors.....for satisfying our own creative faculties with critical observations....Nowadays we watch films just to kill time...

Yeah...those were the days....As kids we waited for the big day...since ours was not a very much film going family,,,we had to wait for some big occasions like the coming of relatives or term holidays to gather courage to ask dad"s permission or until the elders themselves felt like having a day out to go for a movie...or conspire with the aunts and cousins to beef up our pleas.... And what a commotion on that day.... One wanted to watch everything from the beginning..and i used to feel very bad if i missed any portion of it..

When arunathai and Nirmala took charge, there used to be so much hullabaloo....no less suspense ridden than the movies themselves....The permission from those great authorities above,.. always came in at the last minute...there was the worry over whether we could get rickshaws in time...It seemed as if all of the rickshaw men were in league just to keep us from going to the theater..Either none would come forth or there were simply none on road to be called for...which till then looked like to be crawling with them...or those that we did get, asked exorbitant fares...My wily aunts...bless them....they wont be cowed down...they packed in as many of us as they can and beat the rickshaw wallas at their own game and saved on the extra vehicle...

Then there was the other great worry over whether we can get tickets....We could.. thank god..and there is ample time too before the show could begin...Next step is the selection the seats..( they were not the A/c halls of today, you see ).one searched for seats that had fans over them and the usual haggling over who should sit where...Invariably there are going to be taller people at the front rows and one had to strain ,peep,bend at impossible angles to watch the film,,...and it goes to our credit that we did all that with a degree of commitment ,never found otherwise for anything else...

Then started the mandatory "edukondala swami'ekkaadunnavayya" and next,"namo venkatesa'namo thirumalesa"...I have never seen any theater in andhra pradesh those days which started the show without those two songs....We lost ourselves in pleasurable anticipation.....First the lights would be dimmed and switched off...The screen would come alive with a picture of lord Venkateswara, ANDHRULA AARADHYA DIVAM,as they say....next came a big cross mark admonishing the viewers to keep silent...other warnings not to put our legs up in the rows in front...not to smoke....and at the very next instant came a slide of beedi katta ,recommending us to always smoke THAAPI BEEDIS...THIS THEATER IS SERVICED BY so and so firm....

Then,in those days there used to be a compulsory screening of INDIAN NEWS REEL...I can still rember the tune and voice of the back screen anchor who spoke telugu in a singsong hindi accent...When Gandhi or Nehru were shown in the news the viewers spontaneously broke in to an applause,clapping....ooooooh.....People still respected those leaders...

Next followed three hours of unmitigated entertainment....Usually it started with a devotional song during which the heroine or the matron ,sat before her pooja place and belted out the song ,gathering the entire family ,and characters got introduced..If not so, then at least at the end the film, the heroine sings it ...mostly calling upon gods to protect her MANGALYAM or to prove her virtue to suspecting husband and in-laws....The usual elaborate fight sequences,which i found distasteful,but my brothers enjoyed immensely....One or two catchy cabaret numbers ( a jyothilakshmi song was must) were there too to pep up the spirits of menfolk..and i cried buckets seeing the hardships the lead pair went through.....at the wiles of Suryakantham,as she teased the hapless heroine....at the scheming RAJANALA or Satyanarayana as they plotted to eliminate the hero...

The best kind of entertainment came from the folk fiction...where the heroes hopped about sporting unbelievably tight stretch pants like the medieval French, and loose rajastani tunics and short modern day crops of curly hair wigs......You will never have a clue to which race they belonged...definitely not Indian....The heroines sailed in wearing the weirdest of dresses, glittering ornaments and looked like Christmas trees..There were magic wands,hair raising adventures..rib tickling comedies,amazing feats ( as advertised )...yes..desi forms of Harry Potters and mummies...Viewers returned fully satisfied having gone through all the nine exciting emotions...

These folk fictions are best seen in touring talkies...I had seen my share of touring talkies as dad got posted to various godforsaken places in the state...Most of them had at least two of theb touring talkies to their credit..and the fun of it was just memorable...Once the hero,in raptures of love, was singing "where is the mid day moon?"obviously ,he meant the heroine...".Pagati poota chandra binbam kanipinchenu,edi?edi?"..Just then the the sheets over the theater roof sailed away in a gust of unusual wind and moon broke out smiling through.... All of the viewers burst into spontaneous laughter..

At the end of it all, there used to be jana gana mana while the tricolor fluttered on the screen and some,. nay, in fact most of the people slipped out...Dad never approved of this,so we stood up and came out only after the anthem.. with beaming faces and hungry stomaches ,..and for two days ,went remembering the scenes...Why not?..After all.movies were the only entertainment for us...No television,no parks or public places that one can visit...

2 comments:

midhya.bolgspot.com said...

The blog midday moon is very nice and witty.Thanks to the bolgger for giving a witty bolg and not even leaving a minute aspect while giving description of theatre and watching the movie by the children whose entertaiment was only movies at those oiledn times .karthika

midhya.bolgspot.com said...

youhaveforgottentheincidentthatonthatheavypouringdaywestoodonthebencheholdingu umbrellas on our heads amma