Lootera happens to be one of the better Hindi movies to have hit the big screen in the last decade. My mom begs to differ even though both of us watched it together. We both believe that our viewing experiences played a strong part in permanently biasing our views about this movie. We happened to watch it in a theater, or a cinema hall in colloquial terms, called Kisaan cinema, located in the town of Bihar Sharif. Both the cinema hall and the town of Bihar Sharif are pivotal characters of this article. To start with, let me give you a fair idea about the quaint little town of Bihar Sharif
The history of this town conforms to the spirit of all ancient Indian towns and cities; surviving the Turkish and Mughal invasions, and post-independence riots yet assimilating different cultures and religions as is evident by the Jain, Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim landmarks found all around the city.
Even though Muslims form only 34% of the current population, they are uniformly diffused with Hindus throughout the city. This is unlike most modern Indian cities where the areas inhabited by Muslims and Hindus can be easily earmarked. From the well-known Buddhist monuments and ruins in Rajgir and Nalanda to the Pawapuri Jal Mandir, the city can be easily developed as a bustling hub for faith tourism. But like all ancient towns and cities, this rich and diverse culture comes at a price- politicization leading to polarization of caste and religion with little focus on development of the district. Bihar Sharif is the administrative headquarter of Nalanda district which remains one of the 36 districts in Bihar that are covered under Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme (BRGF) . I came across a really interesting anecdote about Bihar Sharif recently at work. I work for a leading e-commerce Indian firm that has majority of its orders (read: >70%) placed as COD i.e. Cash on Delivery and rest of them are pre- paid. But the company has banned all the pincodes of this region from being serviced for these COD orders. The companies that collect cash for these orders have withdrawn this service. The reason quoted by these service providers is the repeated attempts to loot the vehicles that collect the cash for the orders and bring them back to the company’s delivery hubs. The struggle to make a living is a day to day reality. In such desperate times survives one of the few theaters in the city known as Kisaan cinema.
Bihar Sharif, as a city, holds a lot of memories for my mother from the days when my nanaji was posted here. Hence when life completed a full circle and my father, who works with a national bank, was transferred here, she was ecstatic. The curse worthy task of house hunting turned into a trip down the nostalgia lane for my mother. The house they finally zeroed on happened to be right behind our protagonist: Kisaan cinema. In a Disney animation movie, this story would have ended right here with my parents moving in the new house and living happily ever after. The tempo and the measure of happiness in life, however, mostly resemble a Woody Allen movie; aping them in its day to day quirks and weird moments but maintaining a flat level of emotions most of the time. At times , there are Aronofsky and Tim Burton’s horrors thrown in as well. But most of these horrors end like the movies starring Leonardo Di Caprio often do at the Oscars; letting you win only when you least deserve it. The biggest horror was the innovative marketing technique employed by the cinema owners to advertise its location and the various shows. An hour before any show was about to start, the cinema would play Bhojpuri numbers from the latest movies. This was to let the common public know that the show was about to start. My parents eventually made peace with the obstreperous affair of things. We would visit them once in a blue moon and crib without fail about the alarm clocks being replaced by crude and double innuendo songs blaring in full volume right outside the house.
The high point of my life came when my mom and I decided to watch Lootera at this theater. I went and purchased the ticket with no expectation of being able to enjoy this movie. I was mentally prepared for a packed theater with people jeering and commenting at every serious scene. As we walked in, the cinema owners called the boys in charge of seating the people inside the theater and told them that we could sit wherever we wanted. My mom was gloating, attributing this privilege to maintaining a good rapport and never complaining about the noise to the owners irrespective of living so close to the theater. I will never forget her shocked face when she entered the hall and realized that two of us were the only audience in the entire theater. A part of her felt cheated and I attribute that bias to her not liking the movie. I was more than happy because I got to watch the entire movie in peace sans the constant jeering and lewd jokes. Kisaan cinema managed to exceed my expectations while letting my mom down. This, I believe, is why my mom and I have such divergent thoughts about the same movie; apart from the basic theory of appreciating a certain type of cinema.
P.S. The picture below shows what Kisaan cinema looks like. The yellow building on the right side is where we used to stay.
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