There was a time when I would hang out at a cinema hall called Vijayalaxmi in Kamayyathopu, Vijayawada. My friends Sridhar and Nair, and I were the most useless bums in our college. Every day, without exception, we would watch movies, some of them repeatedly at the Vijayalaxmi.
We would watch a movie repeatedly, not for some lofty reason like analysing the story or technique but to catch a glimpse all over again of the heroine’s legs, thighs or navel. Or we would want to re-experience a comic scene or an adrenalin-pumping action sequence.
Sridhar, Nair and I shared a room right next to the Vijayalaxmi. Since we were always broke, we couldn’t afford to buy tickets. So like vagabonds, we would hang around the cinema’s canteen, having tea and biscuits. The canteen’s supervisor kept an account of how much money we owed him. He did this out of both pity and irritation. Our monthly debt would run up to as high as `40, a grand sum during those days.
The cinema’s manager knew us by our faces. We were there even during the college hours. I could sense that he was disgusted with us. One day he told me point-blank that I should be ashamed of myself. He advised me that I should think of my parents who would expect me to be their support system after I had completed my engineering studies.
This affected me for two days exactly but a dog’s tail cannot be straightened. I was back at the canteen. The cinema’s manager was so upset that he would look through me. I haunted Vijayalaxmi for about four years. If I wasn’t inside watching a movie, I would be looking at the posters and stills. At times, I would stand outside to listen to the songs, the background music and dialogue.
Years later, I was invited by the film’s distributor in Vijayawada to see the reaction of the audience to my first film Shiva at the Vijayalaxmi. On my way in an airconditioned car to Vijayawada from Hyderabad — a seven-hour drive — I was flooded with memories of how I used to travel in jam-packed buses on the same route.
Vijayalaxmi’s proprietor was there to greet me with garlands. The crowd started clapping. Somewhere behind the crowd, I caught the canteen supervisor’s face, looking absolutely shocked. He had known me only by face, not by name. I smiled guiltily at him. The cinema’s proprietor asked the manager to get me some snacks from the canteen. Over the heads of the crowd, the canteen supervisor waved at me frantically, tears of happiness in his eyes.
I still owed him `40. But he refused to accept the money and requested a photograph to be clicked with me. I posed in the canteen with him behind the counter.