Romancing the movies # 1

I watched Guru thrice.
When I tell this to people, they usually react in two ways:

1. Guru? What’s that?
2. Guru? Why for heaven’s sake? More people have responded this way (more than you would want to believe) because, come on admit it, most of us have seen those 1980s inane masala potboilers that were being churned out at an alarming rate.

Answer to first response: You shall never understand. Well, to answer the second response: I loved Mithun da’s dance. Although nature had decided to give me two left feet but that never deterred me from secretly practicing in closed room. My red Sanyo cassette player (a mono at that) was good enough to keep me entertained (it did not suffer from any inferiority complex since it did not know that stereo sound existed).
Those were the times when we used to wait for movie cassettes to come in combo pack (and we used to buy them for Rs.15). But few movies such as Meera Ka Mohan (music: Arun Paudwal), Dil Hai Ki Maanta Nahin were given enough credit to be bought in a single cassette. And cassettes were bought based on the sampling provided by the Chitrahaar every Wednesday and Friday night. One of the favorite games used to be guessing the songs in Chitrahaar. I still remember the delight I felt when “O Priya priya” song from the movie Dil was shown in Chitrahaar. I had placed the bet and won.
Watching movie used to be an occasion. The main attraction of any birthday party used to be what followed after dinner. The latest flick, fresh from the VHS copying lab was arranged and the whole gang would forget everything else in the world. Today how many of us have the capacities (and capability) to watch Vatan Ke Rakhwale (a Mithun Da & Sridevi thriller) and Awaam (a pot bellied Rajesh Khanna) back to back? But I have done that…with countless others.
At one such moment, our family hired the VCR (those black boxes still exist today) and told the guy to play Tarzan (supposedly a kids’ movie with animals…well, animals it had, of a different kind) and by the time interval appeared on TV screen, my grandpa and papa had discreetly moved out of the room.

And once I reqested papa to buy me the audio cassette for a movie called Jungle Love. yeah yeah, its "that" kind of a movie.

To be continued…