three more movies went down this past weekend and it all probably started with a small video shop called 'video age' in the kilpauk neighborhood. my neighbor's father owned it and i remember with some clarity my many visits to the shop, with its cassettes neatly arranged in the wall and my favorites tom & jerry volumes 1 through n among them. i probably cursed my neighbor a lot for being born into a video shop, especially one that had so many tom & jerrys.
we initially had a b&w idiot box that gave way to a color one with 8 fantastic channels. 7 of those received the most beautiful static ever seen(or heard) and 1 broadcast DD and its sonorous yet hypnotic intro scene in all its faded glory when they chose to broadcast something. the sunday evening movie was the highlight of the week (i tried the 1.15 pm regional ones..but couldn't read the subtitles fast enough). there were several times we would be out on sundays and on the way back fervent prayers would be offered to the gods of buses and traffic signals to somehow take us home in time for the movie. then came the video shop and the concept that for some money you could borrow things like a VCR (or a VCP if u like) and some 5 or 6 flicks that could be watched over the weekend. it was like someone giving you all the big fun in the world for the price of 1, that you could chew and then return after the weekend. yeah it was that good a deal.
the vcr and the tv formed a two-part act which happened with great fanfare during a few summer weekends and what a show they would put on. the vcr, the star attraction, would arrive in a mini procession all decked out in its velvet-lined leather costume and windows that revealed nothing of the sights it held within. the flicks were carefully chosen to take into account everyone's tastes - a bond movie for my dad, a cartoon for me and my sis, a tam flick for my mom, a random yet somewhat famous hindi one (taken mainly because we'd seen one song on chitrahaar) and maybe one more cartoon. there would be a marathon session over the weekend as we'd hurry to get through all the rented flicks before the clock struck 12 and the tv turned back into being just a box. until the same cycle was repeated again a few weeks later
now, the library is my new video shop. every visit results in at least 2 or 3 dvds borrowed on my friend's account. if i'm too lazy to go to the hall and watch it on tv, my laptop plays them for me. weekends are still movie weekends and except for the nearly extinct VCRs and VCPs, the video age still marches on and till it does you will have to bear the posts i make about them movies. its a glorious age indeed.
the gentle notes of a shehnai playing the dd theme close out the broadcast for the day
4 comments:
Ah! Those were the days. I do not remember the b&w edition of the idiot box but I have very vivid memories of the 8-channel Onida colour telly. And we just had DD-1 and DD-Metro was added later on. We faithfully watched every countdowns and even though I hate to admit it now, I actually knew the lyrics to most of the Hindi songs. heh. "tu cheez badi hain mast mast" was one of our favourites, memorised enough so that the next time we had an antakshari going on in the school bus we'd be able to give the other team a letter they'd choke on.
Those were the happy, uncomplicated days. :)
Thanks for pulling me back to them!
Cheers! :)
u r welcome, v. yup i treasure those memories too :)..my fav song back then was "amma dekh".. and knowing lyrics to those songs is nothing to be ashamed of
Ha!Amma dekh amma dekh tera munna bigda jaye..Hopefully there was no truth in it in your case..;)..
Nah! Not ashamed of it..Just that I'm not on the bollywood bandwagon anymore and it's quite sad that they have this repetitive junk being churned out these days..
pooF.
we used to sleep in the hall in front of the tv and get up earlier than usual to watch woody woodpecker and pink panther and make sure no video that had come in went out unwatched. what a waste of Rs. 2 that would have been.
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