Jab Tak Hai Jaan at Astor Cinema

My heart is feeling warm and fuzzy, my eyes teared up at one or two scenes and my skin is feeling itchy.

Coolie pictcha pun de big screen.

Astor Cinema does not normally show Indian films. But Jab Tak Hain Jaan, Yash Chopra's last film and the latest Shah Rukh is supposed to be a hit.

So 2pm. Yep, Astor. Fans working. Breeze blowing through the vent. No lights inside. Seats, most of them working.. and still comfortable. But the mind works overtime.. there are supposed to be bugs.

Astor never enforced their no smoking policy. So in the box in front , a guy lights up.



In the old days, the large windows apparently used to be opened until picture time. Now they seemed to be sealed shut.. they probably would fall out. I remember hearing the 'clap' clap in Liberty when they used to close the louvres.


As your eyes adjust to the darkness
DO NOT STICK CHEWING GUM ON THE SEATS
DO NOT PUT YOUR FEET ON THE SEATS


No plaintain chips. But, nuts and cheez stix.  The Indian music loud. I finish the cheez stix and the nuts before the picture start.

The screen is big. And it is Sunday, so the voltage is coming to power the projector lamp. So the picture is nice and bright and the sound is loud and clear, and I get lost. My eyes adjust, my body adjusts to the heat and I dont worry about if the seats have bugs.

 I dont have a watch, so I not worried about time. Is a coolie pitcha.. they go on forever. I would never be able to sit down at home and watch one on TV.
 

Picture start. It is a bit shaky on the screen. A bit dull, I hear the projector man talking. He fiddle with something, and then picture bright.

And we get swallowed up into Bollywood on the big screen. It hooks you even though the plot is predictable and you curse the over use of 'London' as a venue. But bollywood is also clever, the money is also with the Desis.

Spoiler Alert


 And the girls wearing skimpy clothes (yeah.. Bollywood is Indian culture we hear) and the dialogue got nuff cuss words. And de mother (Hindu ?) had run away wid a muslim man and leave her daughter with her husband. And premarital sex and praying to Jesus.  Songs and music and dancing.. but not all ah duh.

But Shah Rukh.. playing a young man and then an older jaded man. Switching between different moods. Old love and new love.. themes which a lot of old men (Samar Anand is 38, I am 42.. so some things lil too familiar) Astor nice and dark so the mind could wander.. and de nice ting wid bollywood, your mind could wander and you dont miss much.  The part about the amnesia.. yeah.. that too tempting to think about.. amnesia.. forgetting that which should never have happened.

Intermission.. yeah real Intermission - (they cool down the projector I hear)

I need nuts. And pepsi in a bottle. Toilet dont have running water. I remember de 'chips chips and red spot bottle from Liberty' days

Trailer for Life of Pi look nice on this big screen too.

Shah Rukh is intense. Violence there in the bombs he fixing. Katrina Kaif look nice. The young 21 year old girl talk about sex and so on.. I say well look at duh.. bollywood is we culchuh.. but she fall fuh a old man.
Shah Rukh dialog got nuff lyrics.. - in my next life I will come back and love you.. he says.. no Laila aur Majnu here - love through many lives in eternity. So dis is nice lyrics.. honey not this life, maybe next one.. lets be friends.

Film had a nice ending. I thought the last bomb would ah go off, but it did not.

I come out.. everybody eyes got that nice dazed look when they see a nice coolie pictchah. Some people there for the next showing. If was Liberty days, you would have to come out the side doors because the front would have had crowed.

Nobody itching though.