Magic of open air movie shows in my childhood

While the movies on screen kept me captivated, what I could also never get over was my curiosity around the large number of Campa Cola, Goldspot and Thumbs Up bottles near the projector.

I used to wonder if they were being used to lubricate the projector machine. I know it sounds ridiculous but for 6 - 8 year old me, I couldn’t fathom how could someone drink so much of soft  drinks. While I was lost in those Malayalam movies, it never struck me that the operators would be thirsty and needed something to keep them from the boredom of playing those reels again and again in different locations.

Of course the reams and reams of film reel that used to be loaded on the projector and it’s whirring sound also used to catch my attention and trigger my curiosity and fascination about movies that continue till date.

Nevertheless, I feel lucky to have been part of a generation that grew up watching movies under a warm starlit sky with hundreds of people around in that park in Pushp Vihar Sector 5, Delhi from the early to mid eighties. 

Movie watching was truly a community act back then where you and your family knew many of the other visitors unlike the movie halls of later day experiences.

And once we got our Bush colour TV on January 28th, 1988 we stopped going for those movie experiences.

Nevertheless, I can’t help suffering those relapses of Nostalgia.