Reactions...

This one's about movies in multiplexes.

I'm tempted to start off with the classic opening line. You know what I'm speaking about. "What's the deal with...". But that's a dyed-in-the-wool, standard Seinfeld statement and I don't mess around with legends unless it's absolutely necessary.

Let's face it. Movie-watching is an expensive pastime these days. Multiplexes take your pants off with their admission fee. And also, if your stomach decides to act smart and become hungry (which it does with unflinching regularity), all your money will be taken away and you will be served barely edible 'food'. The portions are microscopic and you leave the place feeling like a jackass. Not a nice feeling.

I'd know. Here's how.

Not too long ago, I caught Taare Zameen Par at the Sion branch of a leading multiplex chain (it's Cinemax, if you really want to know). I think it was in the afternoon of some dull weekday. I paid 70 bucks and bought the ticket. I looked at my ticket stub and it said 'Screen 5'. I managed to find it and pushed the door open to enter. What I saw, I will never forget.

It wasn't a theatre. It was, at best, a 'th'. I had just paid good money to watch a movie in an auditorium the size of a standard-issue hotel room. I was livid. Why didn't the dork at the box office tell me that he was putting me up in a small room with a big TV? I wanted to storm out, grab the guy's shirt and ask him for a refund. I didn't, though. Was too tired to argue.

In hindsight, I realise how this jamboree works. Multiplexes cater to people like me. People who don't care or people who are too rich/tired to care. But let's look at this objectively. If I DID go ask him for a refund, I know exactly what I get for a reply. He'd tell me, in that oh-so-famous-ly annoying tone, "Arre! Kai ko tu badak raha hai! Tere ko poochne ka tha na! Abhi kuch nahin kar sakte hain. Tu chupchap ja!". Now, how does one respond to something as final as that?