What else could this be related to.....?? No points for guessing....Movies, of course!
I was born and brought up in a very conventional and religious family. Both my parents were opposed to watching TV - my mother due to religious reasons and my father, because he felt that it would divert us from studies. So we were reared in a home minus TV. Still I don’t know when this fervour for movies developed in me. Probably it was the prohibition which made TV and cinema all the more fascinating to me. I loved watching movies whenever possible in a small theatre in my hometown.
After getting admission in AMU, Aligarh I got a companion who too was very fond of watching movies. This common factor made us very close friends. He had the habit of watching movies on the very first day of its release. That was something new to me...something I had never done before.
Since I lived with my parents, there was always crisis of pocket money for the tickets, so my friend had to pay for it. He used come home on his cycle from where we proceeded to the movie hall on my motorcycle. Before we realised, this became our “Friday Ritual”. He would pay for the movie tickets and I would pay the parking charges. This was the silent deal between us.
Coming back to the topic...You maybe wondering why second show, why not the first? I am a Muslim by religion and had to offer prayers on Fridays. This being an important part of our religion, I rarely missed it. The prayer timing is between 1230 hrs to 1500 hrs all over India, which clashes with the timings of the “FIRST DAY’S FIRST SHOW” (multiplexes apart). Having experienced the thrill of shows on the first day, and with little option left, I had to compromise with the second show.
Destiny took a sharp turn after college. Here I am, living in a township in a very remote area. Leave aside first or second show, I rarely get to watch movies on big screen. All I have now is the “Torrent” , my saviour, where I wait with bated breath for DVDrips.
And some questions still linger in my mind....Will I ever be able to watch movies on “first day first show” ? Will My Belief be overridden by My Passion?
