O Méré San(g)am

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

(recently written as a personal message to my older sis)

 

I would like to apologize to you, Didi. Deeply. Humbly. 

Here is my unconditional and unequivocal apology for at least one of the many youthful transgressions and disappointments I caused as a kid... an apology that is more than five decades overdue. I guess better late than never?

These thoughts were triggered by a friend who forwarded a song clip that is probably instantly recognizable by someone of our generation... yeh mera prem patra padh kar and the thoughts swiftly went back to dig up a very vivid memory buried deep. It came back up clear and sharp as if it were yesterday and I was experiencing it fresh as a 5ish year old.

For some odd reasons, our dad (who usually had a very strongly held opinion that Hindi movies were a frivolous waste and a totally corrupting influence on the youth and hence a taboo in our family) had decided that Sangam was the movie that we would go to watch... just us three kids (the youngest was probably 3ish then!?) Perhaps because it was filmed in Switzerland and Paris, places he had visited during his prior overseas trips? Who knows! But that is the very first ever movie I watched in a theater in my living memory. Or tried to watch... Incidentally, the only other movie I remember watching with gang of cousins some years later, OK'd by our dad (and recommended by our uncle), was another Raj Kapoor absurdity called Around the World in Eight Dollars, filmed in many phoren lands as well. 

Ratan Talkies. Premium seats in the balcony. One of my dad's junior employees at work (don't recall the name, he was a short pudgy and balding guy who had paan stained teeth) had some connections at the movie theater and we seemed to have gotten pretty good seats. (He was the same guy who got us tickets to the Gemini Circus later when that came to town which was much more enjoyable.)

Anyways... the seats were dark maroon, velvety, cushy but I found them a bit sticky and stinky. It was a totally unfamiliar experience from anything encountered before in my young life. There was much commotion as other people found their seats and settled in before the movie started. There were tun tun bhaja hawkers ringing bells. It was loud. There was cigarette smoke... and sweaty odors. Younger sis seemed to be taking it in stride with wide-eyed wonder. Older sis was thoroughly enthralled, silently taking it all in. 

And then the whole thing took a turn for the worse (at least to my sheltered childhood self). Suddenly, unexpectedly, the theater plunged into darkness. I realized how unprepared we were for this sudden blackout in the theater unlike the evening power outages at home - no one had flashlights, candles or lanterns. Strangely, no one seemed to be minding this near-total darkness at all. There was no grumbling about those copper wire thieves, poor maintenance, the corrupt bijli board officials and the abject failure of the worthless sarkar unable to provide the very basics unlike in the vilayat. This blackout in the theater seemed to be unlike the ones I was used to. I hated darkness anyway because my hyperactive mind spun horrors in the dark prior to falling asleep and nightmares during the restless tossing and turning. But I gritted my teeth and kept mum. 

 

This was nearly four hours of relentless audiovisual assault on all senses with unnaturally enunciated dialogs and strange costumes. There were weird situations and a meandering story-line. I was not really impressed as I was not interested and couldn't follow the strange story. Every few minutes, just when one would start to relax, someone on-screen burst into a song and a hip-shaking dance number that was long, not at all well-synced with the lip movements. 

 

There was a break about half-way during the movie called the Interval. I could stop the potty dance and go relieve myself in a smelly restroom, which took a huge effort for a kid with a shy bladder. Then the torture began anew after the Interval. They were loud and obnoxious. There was someone playing bagpipes, a dance scene with large white feathers. One other odd item that I recall is someone lighting their pipe with strike-anywhere matches that fascinated me to no end. There were warplanes flying, dogfights and crashes. There was snow that looked like cotton and other unrealistic sets in unfamiliar phoren locations. It made me wonder about adults as it made no sense why they would behave so peculiarly! I had never actually seen or known anyone erupting into songs, dancing around trees, or even in a swimsuit in real life up to that point, so it felt quite strange. 

Most importantly, the latest Indrajal Comics had just arrived and it was waiting unread back home. I was deeply fretting about wasting my time through this movie ordeal instead of enjoying the latest adventures of Mr. Kit Walker, the Ghost Who Walks, who rode a magnificent thoroughbred named Hero and had a wolf named Devil for a pet.  His fascinating ancestral abode was the Skull Cave in Denkali forest. There was Guran his pygmy Bandar sidekick and the lovely girlfriend / fiancée Ms. Diana Palmer, the Olympian skater. I was missing out on the Phantom's fists flying through the air (betaal ka mukka hawaa me lehraaya), his ring leaving skull marks on the villainous jaws. Impatiently squirming in my seat, thinking that maybe this time could also have been so much better spent with the cricket kit that I had recently acquired, which had made me the natural leader for the neighborhood kids. But nooooo... here I was, stuck with this fillim nonsense, my resentment simmering like a pot of water on low heat, slowly building up. 

And then it all came to a head. Somehow, a pistol made an appearance in the movie. There was shouting, accusations, gut-wrenching dialog, copious tears, and other melodramatic things. People all around us were absorbed in the movie, soaking up the fascinating scenes unfolding on the screen in silence.

All, that is, except this one idiot kid who started sobbing loudly and uncontrollably and could not be consoled. It was almost the end of the movie and just before the finale with the song O Mere Sanam. But the unfortunate family walked out from the theater before the movie actually ended, much to the deep disappointment of the older sister. I remember that sad, haunting look on the sister's face vividly to this day. 

Do you remember this one, Didi? And do you forgive me?😁

 

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆