Alone - Movies

I like watching movies. I can watch comedy, action, drama, and almost any genre of movies except the gory movies and horrors at night. Gory movies make me sick and at one time it even made me unconscious. Horror at night is obviously not advisable for me. But then I was fascinated by movies right from the Doordarshan movies in my childhood to the movies I watch on DVDs and theatres now.

I started understanding movies somewhere in the early 90s. We got our first TV, a black and white Dyanora after the Asian games in Delhi. It was not until 1992 that we bought a color television. I still remembered the first movie I saw was Amol Palekar’s “Thodasa Roomani Ho Jaye” (Lets get Romantic). I still like that movie a lot. It had a lot of poetry with Nana Patekar saying the best poems.

My parents would watch Marathi and Hindi movies and I would watch English movies that would come at night. I hated sleeping in afternoon because it would spoil my evenings so ended up watching Sunday afternoon movies.

Sunday afternoon movies on Doordarshan were reserved for regional movies. These were not the typical block busters but the so-called parallel cinema. These were the movies where action spoke more than words, literally. Even though there were subtitles, you hardly notice them because actors hardly spoke in most of the movies.

You got a far greater choice with Marathi, Gujrathi, Orissa, Malayalam, Tamil and almost all Indian languages. I started watching movies alone. I never needed volume because the movies had subtitles. I guess I started watching all types of movies from then onwards. I never watched the blockbusters in the evening. That was the time for playing. The only thing we watched was the fighting in the climax.

After the invasion of the cable after 2000, there were lots of movies to watch. Now watching movies was not limited to just weekends. It was everyday. None in my family watch movies like I do. So when everyone would find something to do, I was sitting on the chair, my eyes glued to the television watching movies after movies.

There were people around me but then they would occasionally glance and then would be back to do what they would be doing earlier.I like to watch movies alone more for the fact that movies are supposed to be watched alone. Comedies are always to be watched with friends and family. After all, humor is to be enjoyed with everybody. Its always better to laugh with somebody else and on a good joke. It reminds me of a scene in a movie or a cartoon film, I cannot remember but the scene goes like this.

A person is playing golf alone and he hits the hole in one, which means he has managed to hit the ball in the hole in one shot and then he feels so happy about himself. He looks around and he sees no one. He has hit a hole in one and he may never do that again in his life and there is no one to witness history. It was like Armstrong landing on the moon and people in the control tower had gone for lunch.

Comedy movies are like that. You enjoy when you know that others also have enjoyed with you. The same with action movies.Drama and serious movies are to be watched alone. You don’t want somebody putting a bag in front of you and asking “Popcorn?” just when the heroine is going to jump off the cliff. I mostly watch movies on my laptop or DVD player. Putting the headphone, you shut yourself and literally transport yourself into the world of make believe. You become a part of the movie, the story; you become one of the characters.

In India, I rarely went to the theatres to watch a movie. Even in our college day, we would head home rather than any theatre. We were quite studious then or we were just not interested in watching movies on the big screen or movies those day was just crap and more crap then we didn’t think it was worthwhile watching movies in the theatre.

Going for the movies required big planning when tickets were taken in advance and the meeting place fixed and the time was fixed for umpteenth time . Also we did not have girls in our group hence no going to the movies every other day to impress them. We use to spend time wasting our time in the class or completing journals or sitting outside the college. I guess that’s the reason why we did not have girls in our group. We were so uncool!

After coming to Amsterdam, going to movies was a better pass-time then watching Dutch channels. Still DVDs was a better option. The cost for watching one movie could get you almost 7 movies on DVD. The occasional movie was seen in the theatre again with a lot of planning until the multiplex chain here came with a discount card. Pay a fixed amount in a month and watch unlimited movies. But then the concept of watching a movie alone in a movie hall was alien to me. Movies in theatre were always with friends until one afternoon I saw that “Phir Hera Pheri” was in theatres and the show was starting in the next 1 hour. I did not have enough time to call my friends, neither they would be able to come at such short notice.

I watched PHP alone in a multiplex. Watching any movie in a theatre is always a treat. You wait for no one; you buy your ticket, concentrate on the movie and get out when the credits start to roll. The advantage of having a multiplex is you can choose to watch another movie back to back without having to ask if they wanted to watch another movie. Its completely your choice.

Watching a movie alone in a biggg theatre means taking a ticket from the counter when the person at the other ends asks you again and again “Only one?” You walk into the theatre finding people sitting with their friends. You will find mostly couples and then you find yourself alone. You are looked as you were a species in a zoo or worse a criminal sentenced to be hanged. You are the looked down as someone who cannot get anybody to come with you. Well1 It’s true but you don’t want to admit, do you?

But once the lights go off and the screen comes alive with the magic of movies, you are the last one laughing. There is no one sitting beside you who are asking “Popcorn?” or no one asking “What happened?” You start giving that big wicked smile. It could also be a case of sour grapes but like someone great had said that to understand and enjoy movies, you see them alone.