Anil talkies

With the advent of multiplex cinema halls all over the world, the fun of the “talkies” has somewhat diminished but there was a time when they ruled, especially in India.

When sound was introduced on celluloid, the Indian film industry came into its own, as a definitive and unique entity. These “talking pictures” were an instant hit with the audience and they could not stop watching them repeatedly, over and over again. Soon, the theatres where the films were screened also began to be referred to as “talkies”with each city boasting of several of them.

Dhanbad, the small coal town where I spent my childhood had on its list, among others, “Mahavir Talkies”, “Deshbandhu Talkies”, “Harinder Talkies” and “Anil Talkies”. And as luck would have it, two maternal uncles of two very close friends of mine, owned the last two! Now, Harinder Talkies was a bit out of the way, so we could only visit that place occasionally but Anil Talkies was in the middle of the busiest part of the township. It was also named after Anil Bhaiya, whose birth, after three daughters, was considered an extremely auspicious one in his family.

To say that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth would be an understatement. He was so well provided for that he did not need to do anything in life, but to complicate matters, after school, he decided to apply for admission to a medical college. Not being a very bright student, a rejection was expected but to everyone’s surprise, including his own, he got selected.

As soon as he got the news, he rounded up the usual suspects (his younger cousins who was my friends, and me) to assist him in painting a red cross on the windshield of his car. The vehicle was a gift from his doting father, of course, but we could not understand his urgency in acquiring a physician’s privilege before even stepping into his university. He reasoned that since he had been admitted into the medical college, he was now a doctor, irrespective of whether he passed the course or not.

We nodded our heads, not daring to contradict him, fearing the loss of the use of the VIP box at Anil Talkies. We needed the access to retain our sanity while preparing for our class X board exams. My friends, who were my batch-mates, had drawn up a punishing and exhaustive revision timetable that consisted of learning by rote, from early morning till late night, with hardly any breaks in between. Only our lunch hour was slightly flexible, when we rushed to Anil Talkies, across the road, to catch a glimpse of a song or scene of any movie playing there. Nobody stopped us because we always announced that Anil Bhaiya would be joining us shortly. Which he never did, but his name worked like the proverbial “Open Sesame”.

The air-conditioned chill of the cinema hall induced sleep and Bantu, my friend, would nod off the moment he sat down. His sister and I teased him relentlessly about this, but he insisted he was simply counting twenty breaths.

“You better go home now,” Anil Bhaiya shook Bantu awake, once. 

“Where are the others?” Bantu asked rubbing his eyes.

“I was just counting twenty breaths,” he explained.

“You slept through two, three-hour, shows,” Anil Bhaiya informed him.

“How many breaths is that?” he questioned menacingly. 

“Too many Doctor Bhaiya,” Bantu answered sheepishly, hurrying out.