I, My Dad and Cinema

Recently when my nieces visited us, my dad was watching a film sitting in a reclining chair and I was reading a book sitting behind him in a sofa.  Soon after they entered the room they asked my dad, the title of the film and when he did not respond, they asked me the same question.  I didn’t know what film my dad was watching and he didn’t know that I was also in the same room. My nieces felt it was funny.  This episode reminded me of my childhood.

I was born in the pre-television days.  TV was introduced in Madras when I was around five or six years old.  I am sure the present generation cannot comprehend a situation like that.  Shopping, chatting over phone, or even eating out were not considered entertainment options and video games and computers were also unknown.  The only source of entertainment was cinema. 

A few years before I was born, my parents shifted to the suburbs by building a house in a coconut grove.  They managed to live without electricity initially for a few months.  There were no roads, no water supply, no sewerage facility and not many houses in the vicinity.  My dad had to work for long hours and returned home very late every evening.  Most of the days, I was fast asleep when he returned.  On days he returned home early, he desired to watch a film.  Whenever he expressed this to my mother, she objected.  I wonder why he never went to watch films straight after work.  There was no way my mother could have found out if he had done that.  A friend of mine jokingly says that we should be descendants of Satya Harischandra!  Those days we did not have running water, domestic help or any gadgets at home and managing home was literally a fulltime job. My mother who was very tired with the chores, got angry with my dad for being away from home most of the time and agreed to let my dad watch a film if he had taken any one of us, with him.  (The term “us” includes me, my brother and my sister.)  My eldest brother is not included in this definition, as he was by then quite grown up and independent.  My dad mostly opted to take me with him, obviously because I was the least troublesome.  My mother too agreed, as she was relieved from protecting me from my siblings who were hyperactive, aggressive and mischievous.

My dad filled his shirt pocket with tiny biscuits and carried me on his shoulders and walked through a mango grove which is now the world famous Prasad Colour Lab.  Though it was fenced, literally everyone walked through it, as there was no connecting road to Arunachalam Road (Seeing the plight, L.V.Prasad had donated a piece of his land for a road before the lab was constructed).  My dad then took me to a tent.  I am unable to recollect the exact place where the tent existed, but it was diagonally opposite to the now Prasad Lab.  Most of the days, by the time we reached the tent, the screening had begun.  My dad was not very particular about watching the film from the beginning.  At whatever time we went, my dad was always offered a seat in the last row. He was very much respected in the locality. Most of the audience present there were farmers, agricultural and construction labourers – natives of the Saligramam village or workers in the film studios nearby.  My dad was absolutely not class conscious, even though he was working for the President of India at that time.  He would settle in his chair and place me on his lap.  I would sit facing my dad, turning my back to the screen and eat the goodies from his pocket one after the other and not disturb him for anything as he watched the film.  I never bothered him by asking for popcorn or cold drinks or never cried when there were screams in the film or never demanded to be taken back home while he watched.  I kept myself busy on his lap and after a while would fall asleep.  Once the film was over, he would carry me back home.  Though I accompanied my dad several times to the tent, believe me, I had not watched any of those films.  Probably they were all MGR films.

Coming to the present, my dad and I have very different tastes, particularly with regard to films.  My dad loves action and romantic films, while I can relate only to realistic films.  My dad loves watching the same film again and again and I cannot see the same film twice, unless it is an official assignment.  My dad watches James Bond, Jackie Chan, Sci-fi English films and also Indian films like Baasha, Pokiri, Athadu, Vikramarka, Badri, Parugu, Adurs etc. several times and every time he does, he does it with the same interest of watching it for the first time. 

When my dad now watches his favourite films I still turn my back to the screen and engage in reading or just get out of the room.