A friend of mine had insisted on seeing Jhankaar Beats, a movie that I somehow wasn’t too keen on watching in the first place. (I think Rinkie Khanna had chiefly to do with my reluctance, but this is way too off topic to dwell on any further)
What typically happens to movies like these is that if you don’t catch them in the first 1-2 weeks of their release you have to either see them in good theatres at obscure timings, or at a good time in ‘obscure’ theatres.
Since we all like to believe ourselves to be hard-pressed for time, hence extremely unable to watch it at 10.30am on working days, we chose the latter option. It was suggested by my friend to see it on a Sunday at a more regular show time of 12.15 pm.
The venue:- Odeon Deluxe in Ghatkopar East, which is an affluent part of Central Suburban Bombay (only somehow the theatre missed all this affluence)
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Odeon Deluxe ! The name seemed very familiar, but I simply couldn’t place it. I was positive I had seen a movie or two here at some point in my life. As I racked my rusty brains, memories came flooding back clearing the cobwebs of time.
If I forget to mention later, cobwebs remind me that Odeon Deluxe was full of them. Dangling, in surprisingly interminable lengths, at any given point you may chose to cast your glance on.
I got myself refreshed with the fact that I did go there long ago with some of my Ghatkoparite friends to endure, as a silent spectator, a glowing masterpiece of a movie titled ‘Mann’ (which incidentally had Sharmila Tagore as Aamir Khan’s granny, donning a wig that resembled a collection of all the cobwebs of Odeon Deluxe).
As the memories came flooding back clearing all the cobwebs of time I remembered Odeon Deluxe for its ONE striking feature. That is, Odeon Deluxe was the only theatre in which the loo is less smelly than the actual seating place. Allow me to put that in another way - the seating places are smellier than even the loo!
It is a mysterious intermingling of a multifarious, poly-originating concoction of semi- bearable, almost objectionable aromas that pack, fill and otherwise hang within cubic feet after cubic feet of the damp, heady interiors of Odeon Deluxe, smothering you with their synergistic reek.
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This recollection done I became steely, stoic, and vehement. No Way!! I’m not going to Odeon Deluxe, come hell or high waters. As it is I was still smarting under the baneful after effects of watching a very bad movie in a very bad theatre in the not so distant past.
“Don’t worry it has been renovated and its not like before, the place is now a multiplex with four screens.” This was what I was told by my friend to dispel any of my uncomplimentary notions about the place.
There is that well worn and time-tattered cliché that goes ‘When you have friends like these who needs enemies?’. I think it fits in here so I’ll mention it later. These calming words from my friend somehow placated me. Only to discover with a rude shock that it was a blatant lie to beguile me into watching a movie there. When you have friends like these who needs enemies? (I absolutely dislike reading this line myself. I’m sorry you had to read it twice so soon)
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As we drove towards Odeon Deluxe its exterior looked like nothing that has been recently renovated. I crashed under dejection when I gathered that the renovation was scheduled to take place only next year. When you have friends like… (oh complete it yourself)
The Ticket Window was unmanned, the show time was 12.15 pm and it was 12.40 pm already. We were informed by the security that Madam was yet to come. ‘Which Madam?’ was a logical sequential question, so we asked it. “Ticket counter madam, she comes from Kalyan.” (a far flung area off Bombay city limits) After a good ten minutes Madam waddled in, and greeted us with dark frowns, and while begrudgingly giving tickets she said, “Sit anywhere, the hall is empty.”
The Lobby of Odeon Deluxe will immediately remind you of the moving stairs at Hogwarts. There is a criss-cross of flights of steps that befuddles you. The architect was probably in an advanced state of intoxication while finalising these plans.
I did not want to eat stuff available in this theatre, so have nothing to say about its cafeteria. Since I have earlier dealt with the aromas within the hall lets get down to the actual movie experience
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Pardon this sidey story but, I had met Juhi Chawla as a kid (actually I wasn’t, just looked like one for long so probably she mistook me for one) in India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. She patted my cheek and giggled a lot when I ran to get her autograph. Besides not washing my face for a week, I also remember that Juhi was like the proverbial Punjabi Kudi - gori chitti (fair and whitewashed). At Odeon Deluxe, I was taken aback to see the same Juhi look coal dark. Not just Juhi, the rest of the cast too. Rahul Bose was barely visible. The moving images would to enlarge and shrink intermittently. Since this was not a special effects movie, I concluded we must blame all this squarely on the bad projector
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We saw around us, in an otherwise desolate auditorium a few couples making out. Other solitary people who had sauntered in were fast asleep.
I could deduce that Odeon Deluxe is probably a place, which is very clear about what kind of clientele it is catering to. These guys (viz. couples making out, other solitary folks) require the minimum possible disturbance in the form of sound. Consequently, the sound system ensures that couples, making out, or solitary people sleeping or while they conduct other routine solitary activities are not disturbed. Everyone on screen was talking in whispers, like discussing some big secret, half the time I could not catch which language was being spoken, and hence I haven’t yet understood what Jhankaar Beats was all about.
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Why do I ever go to such places? Why do I ever get taken in by what friends say? It all began when I was 3 months old, in a cradle which was at a height, from which I was about to fall and as soon as......ok, some other time!
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