Warning: Outdated post. Kept hidden away because of its slightly embarrassing nature. Posting it in an unexplainable ‘middle of the night’ urge to come clean. Will surely regret it in the morning.
It was, unquestionably, the worst of times.
And, indeed, the age of foolishness.
Let us start, as is customary, at the beginning, when, in a sudden spurt of enthusiasm to watch Aamir’s latest offering ‘Ghajini’ (which was more than a tad disappointing), I booked 2 tickets to the first show for the day of release. I had never before been to the legendary ‘First day, First show’ of any movie in my life and was more than considerably enthused by the idea. Since the pre release hype surrounding the movie was exceptionally high, I decided to book tickets in advance.
And that’s when I made my first mistake.
I booked 2 tickets.
Two. 2. Do. Dόs. Eitnain. A pair. A couple. One, and one upon that. Which was one more than the number of people who were part of this epic plan at that time. Me.
It was Thursday, the day before Christmas, which was then leading up to a perfectly placed extended weekend, the said weekend being positioned just before New Year’s Eve. Wonderful.
The first round of “Do you want to catch a movie this Thursday?” round of messages did not receive a healthy response. Most people, it seemed, had made rather elaborate plans for the whole duration of the above mentioned days in an effort to maximize the ‘leave applied vs holidays already available’ ratio. (This being the guiding principle behind every Indians’ vacation/visiting home’ plans. Most westerners will take a yearlong sabbatical to explore the world. An Indian will use up just enough leave to stitch together the holidays with the weekend and be done with it, even if it means limiting his vacations to ‘Parents/Spouses’ Parents’ for years on end.)
With just a couple of days left for D-Day, complete panic had begun to set in. It had never before happened that I had watched a movie alone in a multiplex. To me, it was the height of loneliness. After the initial round of close friends, I contacted nearly every person I knew in Gurgaon. (Yes, I went alphabetically down my phone list.) . Without success.
When on D-Day, I was still companion-less for the movie, I revisited the initial list of people whom I had avoided inviting for various reasons, including ‘Hardly know him/her’,’Has boyfriend/girlfriend-therefore can hardly be expected to be free’, ‘is a big bore’, ‘will think I’m hitting on him/her’ among others. The only criteria still remaining being ‘Has strong B.O’.
It will suffice to say that on Thursday evening, with half an hour left for the movie, I still had one extra ticket.
And that’s when I made my second mistake.
I would probably have decided not to go for the movie if I had anything at all better to do that evening. Anything. But short of staying at home and watching old movies and new commercials, I had zilch.
Standing in line to enter the movie hall, I realized what a peculiar situation I was in. Presenting only one ticket at the entrance involved the risk of people behind me realizing that I was unaccompanied in this particular movie plan. My elaborate plan to escape this mini-embarrassment involved presenting two tickets at the counter and explaining in very clear, loud terms to the guard that my friend, who was rather unexpectedly delayed, was going to turn up shortly, and getting him to swear, on his life, that he would allow him to enter the hall on the weight of his (fictional) name on the back of the ticket.
In about 2 minutes, 50 people sitting around me were going to discover that I was watching the movie alone. But these two people standing in the queue behind me would never know.
…
On my left was seated a young couple. The guy, to put it very mildly, was an A**hole. The girl was just plain dumb. (This I infer from her complete lack of retort/response/rejoinder at any of the highly dimwitted and ridiculous comments that the guy in question was making on a continuous basis). His idea of a good movie experience involved loud cribbing (he probably thought of it as refined criticism) of every scene throughout the entire movie.
I tried everything. Sideways glances. ‘Head completely turned towards him’ glances. ‘Head completely turned the other way in disgust’ glances. Loud ‘Tsk’s (with combinations of my head turned either ways). When nothing worked, I did the unthinkable. I got up and shifted to my other seat. (I had that unique luxury, in case you’d forgotten)
My third mistake.
What I had not counted on was that the old couple on the right, which was watching the movie in respectable silence up to now, was hardly watching the movie at all. In fact, they were in the midst of the heaviest ‘making out’ session I have as yet witnessed in a movie hall.
The worst thing was that I could still hear the A**hole from my left while now having to also endure the old couple and their indecent antics on my right.
Though a precedent may not exist of this particular situation, I was pretty sure that shifting back to the other seat after once having shifted out of it would not have been a socially acceptable thing to do.
So I leaned back, ignored everyone (tried to, at least), and suffered through the rest of the 3 hour plus movie.
…..
Nowadays I make double sure I have confirmed company before I book tickets to any movie.
And then, just to be safe, I don’t.
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