Video Parlours in a New Avatar

Last sunday, I watched "Kaminey" in a cinema opened recently in Khandeshwar. Now, this establishment which goes by the name ‘multiplex’ is really a few shop galas clubbed together and has two really tiny screens that are barely larger than the new age TVs. The hall had a seating capacity of 80 and was half full at 10pm which I am told is very good going. The ambience was cool and clean, the projection and sound quality above average. However, the experience was nowhere near watching a thriller on a single screen that looms real large in front of you, covering more than your normal cone of vision, engulfing you and 500 others who have packed the hall in a thrall as if casting a spell.

The collective experience of watching the film was perhaps more like in those places in the eighties and nineties which went by a name- ‘video parlour’. These were mostly shady places among the kind of shop galas that were covered by cement sheets and fronted by a narrow verandah in which would be placed a chalk board on a stand. Coloured chalk caligraphy announced the daily screenings of video cassettes of B and C grade Hindi films or similar regional language films.

There was one such video parlour just outside our colony and many a times I would notice this ubiquitous chalk board and its contents on my way to the station. My most favourite occasion was coming upon it with a title which went- “India win England- 6.00 pm- Rs.75”. This was of course on the morning following the semi-final of the 1983 world cup in which India against all expectations defeated England. Many people gave it a miss instead of bunking work. Somebody from the video parlour had recorded the live telecast and made most of it, selling the show more than once.