An Afternoon at the Movies

Yesterday wanting to escape the heat and monotony of hanging out at home, Kelly (a couchsurfer from Australia) and I decided to go to the movies. We chose a theater quite far from home because it was still showing the film Juno, and a thought provoking, English language film was our top priority. We made the journey down to Bandra over incessant talk of air conditioning, fresh movie popcorn, and the exciting anticipation of a great film. When we arrived, the guy at the ticket counter informed us that Juno was no longer showing and that the newspaper listings that we had relied on were in fact, unreliable. Disappointed, we begrudgingly decided on Wedding Daze, the only other film showing at the same time. The newspaper review gave it zero stars, so my hopes of watching an award winning film were slashed. We entered the theater expecting our noses to be bombarded with the enticing, drool creating aroma of movie theater popcorn, hot and freshly buttered with a dash of salt, our ears to be tantalized by the slurping of sweet, refreshing Cokes served straight from the fountain, and our bodies to shiver with goosebumps with the assault of air conditioned air. But instead, the entry was dark, quiet, and all together uninviting. We followed the arrows leading up a set of grungy, overused stairs, misread our tickets and walked unsuspectingly into a film that had already started before being briskly escorted out by the usher, and continued down the hall to find snacks. Small plastic bags of popcorn lined the snack stand along with a few pathetic looking packages of biscuits, and ancient, dusty bottles of Coke and 7Up. Not quite the refreshments I'd been aching for, but you come to expect the unexpected in India. At least here the entertainment industry hasn't caught onto the Western trend of charging a small fortune for theater snacks! We proceeded to the theater and were led to our assigned seats. My brown, patent leather, reclining chair was a little too keen to recline as I struggled to keep my head out of the lap of the guy behind me. The tiny theater was expertly decorated in 70's tackiness--neon peg boards randomly assigned to wall space, flashing tube lighting outlined the screen, and of course the torn, sticky, artificially brilliant lounges added the final touch of outdated wannabe glamour. The movie began without any previews and instantly turned bad. Bad acting, a horribly overdone story line, and blatantly unnecessary scenes tempted me to get up and walk out. But I hung in there, devouring my little bag of Indian Masala popcorn as the movie got uncomfortably bad and didn't leave until the credits rolled. Lets just say that I was embarrassed to be an American sitting in a room full of young Indians as this movie did great injustice to the reality of life in America.

As we walked out of the theater, one sideways glace was all it took for Kelly and I to lose ourselves in a fit of laughter over the utter ridiculousness of the theater experience. To add to it all, the movie ended at the peak of rush hour and attempting to ride the trains between 3pm and 8pm is an act of lunacy. We pushed, shoved, and elbowed our way onto the train, just barely securing one foot and a decent handhold before it departed. We hung off the side of the train for the duration of the 30 minute trip, fighting relentlessly at each station to keep our spots. Bickering could be heard throughout the train carriage was women jostled for elbow room, breathing room, any uninhabited space, as they endured the sweltering, suffocating heat of the carriage. We at least had the breeze of fresh air, despite the difficulty of hanging off the side of a train while dodging lamp posts, construction materials, and the extended hands of men wandering the railroad tracks. What else can I say about the afternoon but, TII...This is India!