Like book stores, video library outlets are perfect for a browse trip. Videos have even spawned filmmakers from the cult director Quentin Tarantino in the US to our very own Ram Gopal Varma who once set up a video store in Hyderabad. And there are filmmakers who have enormous collections of world cinema DVDs, like Anurag Kashyap does. A generation earlier, Amjad Khan’s Bandra home was lined with video cassettes which have, alas, now become redudant.
So why am I video talking? Essentially because of the arrrest of Bandra’s Sarvodaya video library, on the allegations of drug vending. Spooks me out, considering the fact that the Sarvodaya, unarguably, possesses the rarest of the rare movies, and if you wanted an unheard-of film from Hungary or Poland, it would be bought for you (at a wallet-challenging price, of course) and delivered to your doorstep. So the front-page reports on the charges levelled against Bakul bhai were as horrifying as a nightmare on Elm Street.
Out in SoBo, at least two video stores continue to buzz despite the Internet Generation’s addiction to downloading movies and music. In fact, I’m considered to be a bit of a square for still sticking to my accounts in video stores. It must be over a decade since I’ve been a video gourmand at Napean Sea Road’s Shemaroo — which incidentally was an extension of the Maroo family’s circulating library of books, comics and (psssst) Playboy, Penthouse and assorted news magazines. The circulating library’s still there at Warden Road but I wonder if it’s still the adda for teenagers seeking taboo thrills.
And like bookstores have their crusaders for quality literature like the shy Mr Virat at Crosswords, Shemaroo has a Javeed Mansoori who watches every film before recommending it to the pernickety sorts (like me). And he has coined his own genres, “Would you like to see a ‘romantic softy’, a ‘computer thriller’ or ‘midnight special?’” Go figure. And a professional etiquette is maintained consistently. Ask the 30-something about his family life — after all, you’ve known him for donkey’s years — and Javeed responds robotically, “All are well, thanks to your duas.” End of chit chattering.
Similarly, at the Movie Empire, Kemps Corner, the outlet’s executive who’s generally called Babu Moshai since he’s from Kolkata, turns silent as a tomb, if you want to know about his recent wedding. “Hanh hanh…married thoda late in life,” he grins, shifting topics to dismiss a lately released Bollywood psycho-thriller as “bahut boring…don’t waste your time and money on it.” Moshai never attempts to pass on a substandard product.
Now where Movie Empire scores over the older Shemaroo, is in its collection of world cinema, which ranges from the experimental exercises of Bela Tar to the complete works of the masters Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Eric Rohmer and Joseph Losey. “No one sees them but you,” Moshai shrugs, and immediately offers a masala chai from the adjoining tea shop.
If I have a complaint against both the video stores is that they have drastically cut down on updating the likes of director Bela Tar. But then, I guess they have to survive. If the bookstores are overstocked with pulp paperbacks, why blame the videowallas for the same ole? Tsk.