First Day "First Show"

Chiranjeevi the name spells magic to many of his ardent fans and his movies are the most awaited ones….You should just see to believe the kind of fanfare on the day of his new releases, And it continues for the first few weeks if the movie is really good. Its just short of a small town fair sans the merry go rounds and Columbuses(remember that big swinging ship at the exhibition). If you happen to adore him you can feel the same thrill and joy as you watch some of his movies. And Watching it on the first day- Boy that’s an “I scaled the Mount Everest” kinda Feeling…..

Being a very big fan of this awesome hero I fancied myself watching this movie called TAGORE on the first day when I bought the audio cassette ….(my childhood hero….i used to get inspired by his fights and wanted to kick the wrong doers or the ones who were trying to play fools with me!!!First signs of violence in a kid) …In fact I bunked the first half of the college to grab the first audio cassette that hits the stores. This kind of rebellious or “unstudently”(pun intended) behaviour was much respectable among my peers than getting a moronic 20/20 in the midterm test in an equally moronic subject.

I guess I was held up during the morning session doing some hopelessly abstruse practical work in our electronics lab….well there was never a motivation to get the circuit working or to obtain a believable result at least…I direly wanted to rush out of the lab as soon as possible to catch on my best hero’s flick.

You have to imagine the kind of frenzy that was there when we reached the theatre. My best friend Surya Prabhakar was also with me. It was an evening show or in earthy terms first show

Already three shows were gone by (apart from morning show and the matinee there is also a special fans show very early in the morning) and the movie generated good talk among the public. People were fighting for the tickets as if Chiranjeevi had himself come to give autographs on the tickets. (There goes a legend about two fans conversing about their respective hero’s newly released films. The first dude proudly states that there were fights in the movie right from the first scene onwards. The second one casually replies ”What fun for my hero there was fighting from the booking counter itself.” You may wonder why such craze for the fights in telugu movies. They is always an abundance of violence and brutality in the big heroes flicks than the war films that have won the OSCARS).
WE discovered much to our disappointment that all the tickets were sold(or so they were feigned to be sold) and tried for the Black tickets. Well we were a bit worried as to how much those tickets might be sold for. Usually people can make a good fortune(and also eke out a living just) by selling black tickets for chiru’s movies, some unconfirmed reports say that chiru’s movie tickets get sold for over 1000 bucks as well. Of course we were not prepared to spend that much to watch the movie.

Then suddenly my friend found someone(a very distant acquaintance) nearby. We approached him. Voila! he said he said he could get us two tickets but they were rs10 tickets. Coming from respectable families it doesn’t look good to be sitting in those front rows. But our love for the hero (read thrill of watching it on the first day) overcame our ego and pride. And that too no one wants forfeit a chance when a Rs 10 ticket comes for Rs 15..…Wow that was a great achievement. Getting a black ticket for chiru’s movie for such a meager hike was unbelievable. As I recall that day I think Gods willed that we watch the movie.( Let there be tickets! Let Prabhakar and Sravan watch this movie!! ). We rushed into the hall amidst the crowd and occupied our seats.

Well as the credits rolled on fans flew well cut small pieces of papers onto the screen (they come in varied shapes. A crude and different form of Origami just for exaggeration). A tinge of a disappointment as I expected garlands!!!…And then TADAAAA…Chiranjeevi comes walking onto the screen.( you shouldn’t miss his entrance, First his big soled shoes are shown from ankle onwards;then the camera jogs along his frame and comes 180 degrees to show his deep eyes and then zooms out to show him full fledgedly and the mood is amplified by the stunning background music. But don’t expect a dramatic entry in this movie. He is shown simply typing furiously at a computer and sipping coffee from a cup with the popular caption “Team work means more we less I”. I wonder how many such cups have been sold out after this movie).

Imagine watching your favorite hero from the fourth row…..I wondered why he was much adored by all those front benchers or so called masses. As I experienced it was just the sheer thrill of proximity to their hero’s image. He was much closer to them to their eyes than those comfortably sitting in the balcony…..The movie was ultimate. People went hysterical as chiru danced to the lilting tunes of the songs and uttered powerful dialogues on the screen. It was really an fantastic experience. The movie was a block buster…Ran for 100 days in sooooo many centers much to the craze of number-happy telugu audience.

Well as soon as I came out of the hall I called up home and proclaimed “I watched chiru’s movie on the first day” as if I had just secured a State RANK in a CET and some topicless TV channel crew is going to come and interview my folks and my neighbours as well ….
Well I don’t know how proud or happy I made my folks and the people reading this by disclosing my adventure or so called achievement but I am very much thrilled till this day and will tell this to my children,grand children and great grand children and it will become a part of my legend..Hehe…..