Its a "Black" world out here...

Watching a movie in a theater these days, is a real expensive affair. Its a way of exhausting all those nickels and dimes saved over a period of an year with great difficulty ... with just one go. And to make things worse ... I have to shell out 150 bucks for a terrible Hindi movie ... not to forget the parking fee for my fuel-sucking bike and the pop-corn coke combo for which I end up paying ... and my friends end up gobbling them up ... all the time !!

We were to have a movie get-together this Sunday evening. Vaibhav theater. 6-15 show. Bhool Bhulayya the movie. A bad re-make of Aptamitra. But thats secondary. I go there to book tickets on a Saturday noon ... and a fat man at the gate says its all sold out !! Poof !! Our plans were washed away just like most of the Hindi movies get washed away from the box office these days. "How many tickets do you want?" asks the fat man. "11" I say ... hoping against hope that he knows some tantrik who can produce movie tickets from a pile of ash. "Ok, it will cost you 150 bucks per ticket" says the fat man. "What the heck ??" think I. What are the tickets doing in this man's pocket when it should be at the counter. Fine ... he's selling it in black, but he's from Vaibhav theater itself ... now if these theater guys themselves start selling tickets in black, what the heck will the public do ?

They dont do anything. They just go buy tickets ... no matter what the cost. Idiots they are, either they are way too rich, and scared that if they dont spend money, their dad's gonna invest them in mutual funds, or it is the typical boyfriend who's scared where his girl would think he is stingy, so buys the tickets anyway. "This is not happening" I thought. Straight ... I walked ... to Sanjaynagar Police station ... brought 2 policemen along with me ... to the theater.

Now I thought these policemen had come to catch those culprits. But it seems these guys had other plans. Against my wishes, the 2 brave policemen walked a king's walk ... wielding their stick like a missile launcher ... and within a fraction of a second ... I could see plenty of people running inside the theater ... and then the policemen look at me and ask "Where are those people selling tickets in black ?"

"They are certainly not in my pockets" I wanted to say. The policemen looked for them in the theater ... couldn't find anyone except one ... who did not have any tickets on him ... so was spared. I kept grumbling that this was the man who asked me 150 bucks ... but the policemen were helpless ... "We can't do anything unless we catch them red-handed" they kept saying. The owner of the theater looked a bit confused ... a bit angry ... and was a bit under trepidation as people were crowding around to watch what was happening. But not one person came forward to say that tickets were being sold in black. They were satisfied that they had their tickets, safe in pockets ... and their girlfriends would be happy ... no movie would mean to them ... taking their girl to an expensive restaurant ... this was certainly a better option.

After all the melodrama ... the police guys screamed a bit at everyone ... (even movie goers were not spared) ... he then made an emphatic speech on why Vaibhav must also screen Kannada movies (maybe his wife was constantly nagging him to take her to PVR) ... and then escorted me out ... the owner of the theater came out too ... perhaps to catch a glimpse of me ... to get me beaten if I linger around there again ... and then it was a ride back home for me.

I don't care that those guys weren't put behind bars ... its enough that they now know that some people can go to the extent of complaining ... and that they must be more cautious when carrying out all illegal work ... probably the theater is running into loss ... and they had to adopt this method ... whatever ... but my job's done.

Don't just accept tickets in black ... if you find such a thing's happening ... file a complaint ... dont worry, those theater guys wont do anything to you ... their diminishing finances are their biggest problems ... so they wouldn't want to invite more problems.

No movie this weekend though ... my cousins might turn up ... so probably its gonna be limited to watching some Kannada oldies in my good old DVD player ... actually I did call that theater guy again in the evening ... to ask if tickets were available in black ... he got real angry ... perhaps he was reminded of something ... or someone !!!