MEMORIES ARE ALWAYS IN EXAGGERATED TECHNICOLOR...

Just when the black clouds gathered to send a bolt of thunder down...to warn those who had no business to be out on the roads about an impending thunderstorm...

I was in the throes of making elaborate plans for the day.... A movie, I decided was on the cards...the weather be damned..what were rickshaws for after all? And it was to be a family production...get my mom and her always gungho sisters together, lure them with the promise of a movie and lunch out... And as we stepped out, it was pouring as if there was a massive cleaning operation happening up in the sky...and buckets of mucky water were being splashed on us...

But then I was determined to relive the good old days of watching movies in theatres....the old fashioned way...come rain or shine.... So there we landed, dripping enough to make the theatre manager wonder what sort of dementia drive women to movies in a pouring thunderstorm ...In fact, my mom even apologised to the rickshaw driver for our lunacy...explaining to him how the tickets had unfortunately been booked in sunnier times..tipping him a twenty extra to hide the embarrassment of willing participation in her daughter's mission..

There you go...small town living...everyone deserves an explanation...no matter whether you will never see that bloke ever in your life again... But all this was forgotten as soon as I entered the theatre....like most ones in kochi, they too are named after women...set of three...Savita, Sarita, Sangeeta...trust Malayalees to come up with rhyming names for siblings....so what if they are theatres... Sangeeta is more like a preview theatre by any big city standard...seats about a seventy...has a tiny screen compared to its more preferred siblings...But to be fair, I have watched a lot of good movies here... Today too, I saw a very good one...Ruthu( Seasons)...Hope i spelt it right..( psst...for those interested, a film review can also be attached) But for me the movie wasnt the only attraction...

It was all about revisiting an old haunt... a swanky theatre complex of my childhood.....the popcorn stalls looked the same...no tampering with layouts here....the coffee machines were new...different from the huge coffee filters kept then...but otherwise, it looked like I was in a time warp....The huge elephant's head carved in wood looks a hundred years old...and its still there where it hung from nearly 25 years ago, my first memory of the theatre..the woodden balustrade...the chandelier...nothing has changed... The ticket rates were a hoot...40Rs ticket - the best of the best on offer...printed on cheap purple paper....My nostalgic nose couldn't have been tickled more... Walk into Sangeeta and you realise why they still charge the same...The red carpet running through the length of it, hadnt been changed since the time I toddled through there blackmailing my dad to get me peanuts to keep quiet through the climax.....the seats looked the same too...narrow, uncomfortable with woodden handles.....a raddiwala's treasure trove in these days of plush multiplex comfort.. But I put it all down to those oft quoted 'walks down the memory lane' and sat down...

And as the movie began, and the lights dimmed..started the real live action....Rats scampering up and down....with little animated squeaks to make their presence felt... At first, we laughed, till I felt a furry body scamper past my toes..or did I imagine it? I can't speak with total authority, but there I was watching the film for the next two hours with both my feet cramped into the narrow space on my chair.... And I realised I wasn't the only one....wonder if it was one of those creative minds watching the film who started mimicking the sounds of a tabby cat....for a while the movie was forgotten, half the audience had their feet up, waiting for the cat to advance...till one of them spotted the rat scampering across the theatre screen....and there was spontaneous laughter....

The film's director would have been crushed were he there...the scene was a teary one, that was to hold his viewers in its grip and here was a little puny rat stealing the thunder... Add cockroaches and a generous army of mosquitoes to the mix and we had quite a number of characters off screen too... I don't think I'd thought of rats and cockroaches back then....there were the popcorn packets and the other munchies to look forward too...and bottles of fizzy drinks to chase the fear of little creepy crawlies away....Or is it that all these theatres have now gone to seed? Dont know if the dirt and grime is more obvious to me now that I too am a visitor seeking the same rich colours- from the screen to the carpet...

The movie to be fair was a really good one...another one I'll be proud to claim is from Malayalam stables...But the 'holistic' experience I'd say was more memorable...