Growing up in a middle-class family in a Mumbai chawl, TV was a way for us to learn about the rest of the world. It opened up our minds to all the different possibilities. But at the time, even those possibilities were restricted. The only channel on our TV was the National broadcaster’s Doordarshan.
The most awaited event of the week used to be the Sunday afternoon feature film. My sister and I used to patiently wait for it the entire week.
It used to be an event for our entire chawl. All the kids in the chawl used to gather at one person’s home and watch the movie. Similar to a theater but on a smaller screen. After the movie ended, we used to sit and discuss the movie. What we liked and what we didn’t.
Sometimes an enthusiastic parent would join us and narrate his experience of watching the same movie on the big screen. For the next week, all we kids would talk about was this movie, its songs, its action sequences. Someone with the means and resources would even go ahead buy an audio cassette that contained all the songs of the movie.
The Joy of Chitrahaar
Watching movies in theaters was a once in 3 months activity. Sometimes even longer if no family movie had released recently. In the meantime, Sunday afternoon movies was what we had to be satisfied with…
