Maine Pyar Kiya…..- 1

I have been allocated to a new project and am back in office. Its been couple of days in the office and the office is generally very quite. Its a small location and not many people work here. But this is not about the project. Its about the ring tone that rings somewhere in the office and every time that rings, I can’t help but go back in time, way back in 1989.

The ring tone is a tune of a very famous song of the year 1989.

Tum ladki ho……

The year was 1989. I was in 8th standard. It was a age of action movies and mindless violence. The story was always the same. If it was action movie, it was either a revenge drama or an upright police officer fighting the system which would turn into revenge drama at the end of the movie. If it was a love story, it would be a college love story where a old hero would try to pass on as teenager in college or then poor girl - rich boy or vice versa love story. It was same story rehashed and recycled. Just put some good songs and the movie goes hit. Take “Tridev” for example

Then came Sooraj Barjatiya’s “Maine Pyar Kiya” starring a new lead pair Salman Khan and Bhagyashree and the nation was hooked. It was a typical rich boy - poor girl story but then the second part of the movie gave it a total new twist to it. It was the time when MP3 had not arrived on the scene. Even CDs had not made any appearance. It was the good old cassettes. It was a time when the success of the movie was linked to its music.

MPK songs became an instant hit. All paanwalas, hotels, restaurants, rickshaw wala with the jhankar beat stereo and my neighbor would play the songs in an unlimited repeat mode. Lyrics were memorized and sung at parties.

The story was not that new in any way, just differently treated.

MPK had a simple story, a very Indian story. A poor father leaves his daughter with his friend while he works outside India. The girl meets her father’s friend’s son, who has studied abroad. They interact with each other and over a period of time, fall in love. The boy’s father does not agree. He insults the girl and her father and drives them out of the house.

The boys tries to convince his father and then tries to convince the girl’s father. The girl’s father ask him to earn Rupees 2000 on his own as a condition to marry his daughter. The boy earns the money but then the villain comes and ruins the show. Then the usual climax fighting and all that and everything turns out to be good.

I saw the movie in theatre. The only time I saw movie in theatre was when I went on a school picnic and they showed us a children movie. The other time was when I saw a Marathi movie in theatre. My friend, Avi saw the movie first and he liked it very much. So the next time, I was all dressed up in my bell-bottom pants and flowery shirt and went with all my friends in one of three theatres in our suburb., The Ajanta.

Ajanta is a very dingy little theatre and at that time, there were no multiplexes. It had worn out seats and peeling walls but when the movie started, all I could see was Bhagyashree and her father living in this beautiful house right in the middle of a green valley. I was transformed into a world of cinema. Sooraj Barjatya gave me my first favorite movie.

After I came out of the hall, I could not remember the stinking smell in there, nor the unwashed floor but I could remember the super Salman Khan, the shy and coy Bhagyashree, the funny and caring Laxmikant Berde, the upright Alok Nath, the motherly Reema Lagoo and the villainy Mohnish Behl.

I was so mesmerized that I went and saw the movie again in the theatres. For 13 years, I hardly saw any movie in the theatre and here I was seeing the same movie twice in the theatre. The same effect after the second viewing. Me and my friends could not stop discussing it.

I saw the movie on the video too. Those days we would contribute 1 rupee and rent video cassette. Then I saw the movie again and again. At last count I saw the movie eight and a half time out of which four and a half time in the theatre.

The half time was because of my parents. Although the tickets would cost 20-30 rupees those days, we did not get pocket money. When we asked for watching the movie, we were given money the first four times. The fifth time when we asked for money, our folks were already tired of the movie. They did not want us wasting our money on the same movie again and again.

The fifth time when we wanted to see the movie in the theatre, we were warned that the money was NOT to be used for MPK. If we saw the movie again then we wouldn’t see the light of the next day. Actually they didn’t say that but the threat was similar to the one.

But then we loved the movie and so we went and bought tickets to MPK. Till half time we enjoyed the movie. During half time, we thought over what to tell home. We were asked to bring the movie tickets so we were surely walking into trouble. We realized that there was no way we would escape telling lies. We walked out of the theatre after the interval.

As we came before the movie got over, our parents did not suspect anything. We told them that we did not get tickets and we went to a restaurant to enjoy. That is how I saw only eight and a half times of MPK.