A Visit to an Indian Cinema

Everyone here being utterly obsessed with Benedict Cumberbatch, we had to go to the cinema to see The Imitation Game. We chose a cinema in a mall not too far away from university, and after the rickshaw drove away without our money – giving us a free trip, we went up ridiculous amounts of escalators to finally reach the box office. I was pleasantly surprised that a ticket only cost 120rs (less than £1.50), and that popcorn was more expensive at 160rs! We received our tickets, making sure we had chosen an English showing and not Hindi, and then had to join a queue to step through the metal detector and be frisked and searched. Much like in Mumbai airport, there were separate stations for men and women.  Men step through and if they beep they are briefly frisked before being hurried along, and so they all went about their business quickly and on to their seats. For women, however, it was rather different. Every woman is searched whether beeping or not in the metal detector, and our bags were also searched meaning cameras, cigarettes etc. all had to be checked in.

Once finally getting through, I went to the loo before buying my popcorn and was pathetically excited to see real toilets with actual toilet paper (this not being considered a necessity in many places I’ve visited, and so I carry spare with me wherever I go)!

The film itself was really amazing and enjoyable. The adverts beforehand were short, and mostly in Hindi, with some in English being accidentally played twice in a row. The seats had so much legroom and all reclined so the whole experience was really enjoyable. Halfway through a sentence, never mind a scene though, the film cut out and it was announced we were having a break. It was like a friend pausing a film because they needed to take a call or go to the toilet. It started again very abruptly and had rewound a little.

A man in front of me had clearly ordered some food in the break as an attendant came in with his torch and not so quietly discussed money. Several phone calls were taken throughout, and interestingly whenever any character in the movie smoked, a ‘smoking kills’ warning appeared at the top of the screen.

We exited the screen through a different door and so it was a little mission afterwards to find the ‘cloakroom’ to get my camera back. Overall a strange but not bad evening out!