Down Memory Lane #3 – The Audience Laughed when Jacked Died of Hypothermia

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I was in high school when the movie Titanic was released. A bunch of us in school decided to go and watch the movie as the movie had a sensational hit across the world and Kate Winslet became a sensational hit amongst us.

In those pre-internet days, to reserve a movie ticket one had to go in-person to the theatre a few days before the day of the show, wait in queue and book the ticket. Then the person has to come back on the day of the movie show and watch the movie. So, two trips to make sure that you get to watch the movie.

My friend Venkat, his brother, a classmate of ours and I went to went to Devi Theatre complex on Mount Road to watch the movie. Since the movie had been theatre for a few weeks by then, we thought we should be able to get the tickets at the counter itself if we go a couple of hours prior to the show.

Turned out that our collective instinct was wrong. We saw houseful board at the counter when we reached the theatre. But we managed to buy tickets from one of the guys who was selling the tickets with a markup. Only two of tickets were for seats adjacent to each other. The other two were scattered in random corners in the theatre. Too bad. But in those days, it was considered better than going home without watching the movie.

Devi Complex had four theatres: Devi, Devi Bala, Devi Kala and Devi Paradise. We got tickets for the Titanic movie at Devi, the biggest and grandest of the four theatres. Incidentally the movie Titanic ran for 365 days in Devi theatre.     

Devi theatre was one of India’s first theatres to install Dolby audio. In those days Devi Complex competed with Satyam Cinemas for the best multiplex in Chennai. Alas, Satyam won the battle in subsequent years because of tasty popcorn!

Devi theatre is a large movie hall by today’s multiplex movie hall standards. All the movie classes in the theatre were in the same level. It was one large movie hall – end to end.

We settled down in our seats right on time for the movie to start. The grandeur of the onscreen Titanic ship mesmerized me. The beauty and charm of Kate Winslet as Rose eclipsed even the grandeur of the Titanic. And Leonardo Di Caprio as Jack unnecessarily tagged along with Rose throughout the movie.     

The plot moved seamlessly towards the tragedy of the sinking of the Titanic due to the collision with an iceberg. Everyone in the theatre was hooked to the screen. Then the heart wrenching scene slowly unfolded. To save Rose from drowning, Jack decides to stay in the cold Atlantic waters. As a result, Jack dies of Hypothermia. Rose if heartbroken on realizing that Jack is dead.

You could sense the collective sadness in the movie hall. At this very juncture, I heard the voice of my classmate saying, ‘Jack Illana Yenna Ma, Naan Iruken Unaku.’ (Translation: What if Jack is no more; I am there for you). A tsunami of laughter swept through the entire movie hall! Even after the laughter died down, the humor vibe still lingered in the air.

And so, an off-the-cuff remark by a mischievous teenager evoked an anti-climatic response from the audience for the most iconic scene from a movie that went on to win 11 Oscars and made more than $1 Billion in box-office collections. In that moment, my classmate became the David who vanquished James Cameroon, the Goliath with a verbal pebble.

This is the third post in the series, ‘From Chennai to Madras Down the Memory Lane’

1st post in the series: A Friend’s House

2nd post in the series: Sharing Slivers of Joy

Down Memory Lane #2 – Sharing Slivers of Joy

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“You can say hi. I am not going to grab your cream bun and run away,” my classmate from French class uttered these words as she was walking past our group on Chamiers Road.

No sooner than she finished this sentence, all my friends started laughing boisterously. As if taking their cue, the guy who was manning the bakery counter also started laughing out loudly.

I did not know how to react. There was no place for me to hide. The only thought that came to my mind was, “Three of her Computer Science classmates are also here. Why on earth did she target me?”

Every group of friends would have a place where they would assemble after school, college, gym session, etc. to chit chat, make fun of each other and simply while away time.

For my group at Boston Matriculation School, it was a bakery on Chamiers Road just beside the bus stand, at a couple of minutes walking distance from our school. There was also a pharmacy adjacent to the bakery.

My friends Pramod, Vishnu & Nambi from Computer Science group as well as Venkat, Palani and myself from Biology group would assemble at the bakery after school with amazing regularity. There were days in which a couple of other batchmates would also join us. Since we went there so often the person manning the counter at bakery, who was in his mid-twenties, also became a part of our gang.

We would turn any conversation into an opportunity to laugh at each other. We would tease each other, pass comments about the incidents from the day and so on.

Those were the days of limited means. We would pool the money that we had and buy one or two cream buns depending upon the group size on that particular day. The guy in the bakery would usually cut a cream bun into three pieces. But, for us he would accommodate as many pieces necessary so that all of us would get a piece each.

On most of the days each of us would get a piece of cream bun hardly the size of a thumb. But that did not stop us from having a good time. Going to the bakery after school became a ritual for us. The day would be incomplete without going to that bakery and teasing each other.

Apart from cutting the cream bun into ever smaller pieces, the other skill the bakery guy had was to add fuel to the fire for whatever conversation that we were having. Mostly he would hang around us with an innocent look on his face; it would look like he was attending to other customers and was hardly paying any attention to our conversations.

But he had an amazing knack for eavesdropping and even more amazing knack for timing. He would join our conversations at any crucial juncture and pass a comment, hardly a sentence or two, or a question. And that would make the bad situation worse for whoever was the butt of the joke at that moment. With his mission accomplished he would laugh out louder than any of us and then go back to attending the bakery.

Even though all of us used to talk with girls in our batch, those conversations would begin and end inside our school campus. That being the 90s, people would roll their eyes or even offer a look of contempt if they spot a boy and girl having conversation. People had a very severe hangover of Tamil cinemas and had erected an invisible social wall between boys and girls.

On that particular day, we were at the bakery. We were facing the road while eating and chatting. We spotted our classmate walking towards us. Wanting to avoid any awkward question or comment from our baker friend we decided to avoid any conversation with her and turned towards the bakery counter in unison. But I guess I was a little slow in turning and that probably would have made it very obvious to her that I was trying to avoid looking at her. So, she shot back with her critical observation/ comment. Thankfully that episode ended with just laughter and no follow-up questions from our baker friend.       

During our entire 11th & 12th standards we regularly assembled at the bakery after school. Strangely today, I neither remember the name of the bakery or the name of the person who used to be an extended part of our gang. We hardly saw him after completing our school. The bakery closed down a few months after we left school and the pharmacy closed down a couple of years later.

Today the bus stand still exists almost at the same spot where it used to be. The place where the bakery stood and where we used to stand and chat still remains dilapidated nearly 25 years later. It’s so strange to think that the place which used to be our chit-chat spot for more than two years has vanished without a trace. All I am left with are the memories of the good times that we, a bunch of carefree teens had there.

This is the second post in the series, ‘From Chennai to Madras Down the Memory Lane’

1st post in the series: A Friend’s House

3rd post in the series: The Audience Laughed when Jacked Died of Hypothermia