In Jaipur’s Raj Mandir Cinema, a special screening of Ramesh Sippy’s blockbuster film Sholay was held in August on the completion of 50 years of its release. IIFA’s 25th edition was held in Jaipur in March, and Sholay was honored in ten categories. Just like any movie buff, I, too, have seen it a couple of times. If given a chance or if I give myself another leisure from the tight schedule of writing I will watch it. Or hear it! Yes, I have heard of the film. It might sound quizzing but it has a story behind it. The story is set in a rural setting. It has three parts:
First Part of the Story
My place is a mines-town and a hillscape. Nature begins just beyond the threshold of our houses. Nature embraces us and vice-versa. But in-between the normal school life and archaic freedom along with boredom of childhood lies the real story for which I am sending you all an invitation to read this.
As my place is small, each one knew each other. This is maybe what we call a sense of community. This sense could be witnessed mostly in festive-seasons. In the puja pandals, occasional funfairs and the yearly safety week ground. Along with these the weekly open cinema held in the wide grounds each colony possessed. A place made of few colonies; and each had separate grounds serving both as children playgrounds and open cinema theatres. A large van was allotted by the company who ran the mines on lease, to bring the projector with the reel tucked in it just before dusk transferred the earth-hours in the hands of night. The name of the film hung in a slate at the back of the van. Not to say, the names kept changing each week. This was a ritual practiced through all seasons and months. Every week, the film was shown synchronically at each colony. That is, from Sunday to Wednesday. One show a day. This arrangement was mainly because of the absence of a cinema hall in the town.
My colony number came second. That being said, each Monday the colony ground bustled with people of all age-groups, religions etc. Funniest part was, each carried their seats to watch the films. We too went but very rarely as the school tasks were the highest on Mondays. Nor did we ever carry to sit and watch for 2-3 hours. Half an hour was the longest span of time we have ever watched. As it was a kind of small gathering, the local vendors came with the anticipation of making a sparse business. Balloons, roasted groundnuts, popcorns, puchkas were the largest attractions of most children and adults. Even with televisions at home, the charm, the magnetic-pull of it took a long time to halt. There I’d watched countless films, even if not in entirety but partial. I don’t remember precisely but mostly family-films found a place. Also the masala movies which we commonly say about films made simply for entertainment purpose are too frequented on the screens. Out of them, I remember Sholay. A film that didn’t put a single fold on our foreheads. An out-and-out masala movie.
Second Part of this Epic Story
These weekly cinema shows stopped after the number of people began to dwindle. Finally now they are a closed chapter of this mines-town. Now, no one talks about it. Sometimes I think everything is fine in a superficial manner. This is maybe what we call progress. But no change comes without a price. I feel the sense of community is absent from the town.
Third and Final Part of the Story
Now that the weekly film shows have stopped, what is still continuing is the film shows done by the different Puja Committees during Durga Puja. People throng in large numbers from neighbouring places. It’s mainly put for the villagers coming to bow down before the deity, have fun at the fair and in the night-long stay to watch films on the temporary white screens hung for the purpose. The loudspeakers, the nightlong cinema sounds gives the otherwise sleepy town a kind of hard jolt. In the colony I live, there’s a wide ground in front of the house where the social functions are held.
One night of Ashtami, my sleep broke at 1AM. The casting of Sholay hit my ears. I was too sleepy to leave the bed. The film began. I was lying on the bed. After a few minutes I realized, sleep has abandoned me for the rest of the night. I was listening to the movie as I didn’t have the energy to get up and begin my writing. The film’s sound had filled the entire scape. I was hearing every scene like it was a radio show. The entire film of 3 hrs 24 minutes ended close to dawn. That night the film became more than a cinema for me. It became a series of dialogues, songs i.e. language put forward in various attractive patterns. The background score never dipped in its impressive performance. I continued to listen with an unwavering attention. As if a project needed completion. Strangely I felt no heaviness but a pleasure for which I am still in search of perfect words.
Truth is I can’t say what I like most about the film. The entire film is like a timeline where I have lived with the characters. Why am I still hooked on this experience? This film transcended itself from being just a film to something eternal. I am not sure if I can ever forget the entire process of hearing a film when everything is available at the remote click of my hands and pine for what I can’t receive with the same kind of naive astonishment.
Purbasha Roy is a writer from Jharkhand, India. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Iron Horse Literary Review, The Margins, Reckoning Magazine, Notch Review as of late. She attained second place in the 8th Singapore Poetry Contest, and is a Best of the Net Nominee. Website: https://linktr.ee/Purbashawrites