Sujata
Generally, when you spend a good amount of time at a place which isn't particularly fascinating and not even close to what you thought it would be, you gain a newer experience which quite often is cherished later on very fondly!
College days are just like that. You are angry at each and everything. Faults are ever-ending and never-ending. Professors are boring and troublesome. Attendance is always short. The monetary condition identical to the attendance. You have issues everywhere yet you take time out to have some fun to get your mind off these hard times. But what if you get harsh times even when you go out for fun?!?!
My friends and I decided to go for a movie, the first one at Ranchi. We had received quite a few warnings from fellow batchmates who had had experience of watching the movie there a day before. There were many a suggestions as well which we scoffed at since we found what they told to be highly exaggerated and fabricated. How illeterate we were!
After leaving BIT bus, we took rickshaws to reach our much desired destination. Things seemed just fine from outside. A friend and I went to get the tickets from the counter. There was not very big queue over there. We neared the counter fast. However (here comes the However), when we had almost reached the counter, I could feel a turmoil around. I looked to my back. What I saw was unimaginable. I had never seen that in my life, ever! 2 - 3 guys walked ON the railings between which we had made the queue, i.e., their feet were on our arms level. They came near the counter, put the money and their hands inside the counter and got the tickets. I was stunned. Here I was waiting in the queue and this guy stood over my head and got the tickets in no time. I didn't have my mommy to complain to. Frustrated, i asked for the tickets when I reached the counter. Cheerfully, the guy replied that the tickets were out of stock and told that we had to buy them from the guys outside who sold at higher prices. We got worried at the thought of buying the tickets at higher prices. To reiterate, you are perennially short of money when at college. Yet we asked for the tickets. Another surprise waitied us, a pleasant one this time. Each ticket costed us 30 bucks, in black. Wow! One incredible part was over.
Second incredible part:
Sujata is a small theatre. Though important theatre in Ranchi, its premise is small which can not accomodate many people. So there is entry for no one except for females or for the ones who know the theatre guys. Rest can go inside only when the door opens finally for the entry. The entranec has an iron channel gate which is opened only so much that strictly one person can enter at a time. Also, Sujata has no seat numbers. The seat numbers were there initially. But then you can't risk your bones for a seat. The local goons used to grab the good seats and left other ticket holders to goto some other seats. This was a chain reaction in which it happened that everyone sat at everyone's place and so the concept of seat number go annuled.
The effect of this is everyone tried to get hold of seats farthest from the screan the effect of which is as soon as the gate is opened, chaos is all around. Everyone tries to enter at the same time. Since only one person can enter, there is huge uproar. But the theatre owner has solution for this confusion as well. There are 3 - 4 people kept who have bamboo sticks and leather belts with them. Anyone who tries to encroach the queue, have to deal with them. Sad, we didn't know all this at that time.
When the gate opened, all hell broke lose. People came from no where. As mentioned above, the guys with sticks and belts started the action. They acted as if going to hit people. They hit the sticks on the road just next to people standing in the queue so that the people from out of the queue could not join it illegally. Loads of people were hit by belt. I got a couple of shots. Everyone shoved everyone towards one direction: the gate.
I have never stood in the queue which mover slower. I was so scared. I could not make out what was happenning. All of us were pushed in different directions. We were caught off hand here. None of us was ready for something like this at all. This was new for all of us. We found all this barbaric. Where had the civic sense gone? It was strange... and dreadful.
In the four years that we all spent at BIT, Mesra, we watched countless movies at the same theatre. Facing the same ordeal. In the later part, we even befriended an "official" from the theatre who smuggled us, the guys, inside even before the gates opened.
In those four years we watched the movies at Sujata with gals also but never ever did they complain about a misbehavior. Complaints came from the guys though! The company of the gals loosened our pockets a bit extra. We had to sit with them on the seats where they "could" sit. That costed 50 bucks, twice what we paid for "our" seats, plus we had to drink coke within the theatre which we otherwise drank once we came out of the theatre.
This blog came out today when on Orkut in XLRI community, I found few poeple getting worried over absence of good movie theatres at Jamshedpur. I am glad that they did so that these memories removed :).
College days are just like that. You are angry at each and everything. Faults are ever-ending and never-ending. Professors are boring and troublesome. Attendance is always short. The monetary condition identical to the attendance. You have issues everywhere yet you take time out to have some fun to get your mind off these hard times. But what if you get harsh times even when you go out for fun?!?!
My friends and I decided to go for a movie, the first one at Ranchi. We had received quite a few warnings from fellow batchmates who had had experience of watching the movie there a day before. There were many a suggestions as well which we scoffed at since we found what they told to be highly exaggerated and fabricated. How illeterate we were!
After leaving BIT bus, we took rickshaws to reach our much desired destination. Things seemed just fine from outside. A friend and I went to get the tickets from the counter. There was not very big queue over there. We neared the counter fast. However (here comes the However), when we had almost reached the counter, I could feel a turmoil around. I looked to my back. What I saw was unimaginable. I had never seen that in my life, ever! 2 - 3 guys walked ON the railings between which we had made the queue, i.e., their feet were on our arms level. They came near the counter, put the money and their hands inside the counter and got the tickets. I was stunned. Here I was waiting in the queue and this guy stood over my head and got the tickets in no time. I didn't have my mommy to complain to. Frustrated, i asked for the tickets when I reached the counter. Cheerfully, the guy replied that the tickets were out of stock and told that we had to buy them from the guys outside who sold at higher prices. We got worried at the thought of buying the tickets at higher prices. To reiterate, you are perennially short of money when at college. Yet we asked for the tickets. Another surprise waitied us, a pleasant one this time. Each ticket costed us 30 bucks, in black. Wow! One incredible part was over.
Second incredible part:
Sujata is a small theatre. Though important theatre in Ranchi, its premise is small which can not accomodate many people. So there is entry for no one except for females or for the ones who know the theatre guys. Rest can go inside only when the door opens finally for the entry. The entranec has an iron channel gate which is opened only so much that strictly one person can enter at a time. Also, Sujata has no seat numbers. The seat numbers were there initially. But then you can't risk your bones for a seat. The local goons used to grab the good seats and left other ticket holders to goto some other seats. This was a chain reaction in which it happened that everyone sat at everyone's place and so the concept of seat number go annuled.
The effect of this is everyone tried to get hold of seats farthest from the screan the effect of which is as soon as the gate is opened, chaos is all around. Everyone tries to enter at the same time. Since only one person can enter, there is huge uproar. But the theatre owner has solution for this confusion as well. There are 3 - 4 people kept who have bamboo sticks and leather belts with them. Anyone who tries to encroach the queue, have to deal with them. Sad, we didn't know all this at that time.
When the gate opened, all hell broke lose. People came from no where. As mentioned above, the guys with sticks and belts started the action. They acted as if going to hit people. They hit the sticks on the road just next to people standing in the queue so that the people from out of the queue could not join it illegally. Loads of people were hit by belt. I got a couple of shots. Everyone shoved everyone towards one direction: the gate.
I have never stood in the queue which mover slower. I was so scared. I could not make out what was happenning. All of us were pushed in different directions. We were caught off hand here. None of us was ready for something like this at all. This was new for all of us. We found all this barbaric. Where had the civic sense gone? It was strange... and dreadful.
In the four years that we all spent at BIT, Mesra, we watched countless movies at the same theatre. Facing the same ordeal. In the later part, we even befriended an "official" from the theatre who smuggled us, the guys, inside even before the gates opened.
In those four years we watched the movies at Sujata with gals also but never ever did they complain about a misbehavior. Complaints came from the guys though! The company of the gals loosened our pockets a bit extra. We had to sit with them on the seats where they "could" sit. That costed 50 bucks, twice what we paid for "our" seats, plus we had to drink coke within the theatre which we otherwise drank once we came out of the theatre.
This blog came out today when on Orkut in XLRI community, I found few poeple getting worried over absence of good movie theatres at Jamshedpur. I am glad that they did so that these memories removed :).
Comments
But u know, I was eagerly waiting for the most wonderful chapter of that sujata book when we were tricked by our seniors into watching 'tere naam' during our ragging. The first thing we did next day was this muvie and then realising what a fool we had been made!! but now i get so amused remebering those old days.
Another mast wala incident was when we bought executive class tickets for Rs. 7/- in SAINIK for wathcing "calcutta mail" and then drank a COKE for Rs. 10/- hahaha...
and the incident when i lied down on the seats to reserve them :D