Dateline Bihar: Paisa Vasool at the Cinepolis

Ask anybody about his favourite ‘time-pass’ destination this side of the MG Setu (now widely famous as the longest rickety and damaged river bridge in Asia) and they’ll point you to the P&M Mall near Patliputra Colony.

The ordinary working class Patnawallah usually identifies this towering edifice as “Beeg Bajaar”. It’s the number one destination for everyday folk, their kids, wives, significant others, country cousins, and visiting mothers-in-law. They just hop an auto to the ‘Beeg Bajaar’. In fact, the “Beeg Bajaaar” is the first refuge for the non-AC classes to beat the heat at the height of the long dry summer. Thanks to Bihar’s health minister, who promotes shopping malls as dispensers of free air-conditioning for the heat-maddened masses.

The other day, a trip to the P&M was planned.The objective was to experience first-hand that film on the coal-mining mafia at the Cinepolis. (The Cinepolis is where all the pretty young things of Patliputra and their gangly pimpled admirers go to hold hands, but that’s another story).

The Cinepolis is also where ‘the cultured class’ likes to spend its entertainment rupee. “At last Patna has a really great Multiplex. Such a nice environment. No rickshaw-wallah types. No rowdy behaviour. Such a good place for family entertainment. ” Don’t we hear these lines ad nauseum?

My smart teenaged cookie said, “Ideal time: the morning show, 9:50 am.” And why was that? “First, the cost is a mere  hundred rupees. All other shows are Rs 180 per person. Second, we get cola and movie for the cost of a regular ticket. Paisa vasool!”

Morning show: the Gangs of Wasseypur. Auditorium almost filled to capacity with males aged 16 to 30. I spot exactly three women in the audience, all ‘aunties’. Interesting!

The audience is composed of males in various stages of development: the pimply, gangly, types; those with budding muscles and off- the- shelf jeans; a few balding ones with soft midriffs. And then, from the very first frame of the movie, the ‘multiplex myth’ is shattered. There are catcalls, wolf- whistles, raucous guffaws, lewd and suggestive sniggers that erupt across the hall. My smart cookie is crimson with embarrassment. “But...this sort of thing doesn’t happen in Cinepolis!” he mutters.

The ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ shattered the thin veneer of ‘pseudo-sophistication’ and social ‘glass ceiling’ created by ‘premium rate tickets’ and‘cola- popcorn combos’. Here was the ordinary Bihari male in his element, his everyday vocabulary of expletives granted legitimacy by the dialogue on the screen. To the country bumpkin from Buxar who took his first hesitant ride up the escalators - GoW : raw, raunchy, ribald and utterly fascinating – was both affirmation and empowerment. He’s attained Multiplex-dom!

And that, dear Cinepolis Clubber, is real paisa vasool!