MOVIE-MANIA DOWN SOUTH
Bollywood stars may be popular worldwide but the craze of devoted fan-following is nothing as compared to our desi-sambar Southern style… you have to see and experience the euphoria to believe it! They will do anything and everything that one cannot imagine to follow their stars… while the crores fee per film by A-graders has just brought Bollywood in limelight… way ahead, Rajnikant and Vijaya Shanti (when Amitabh Bachchan was drawing 60-70 lakhs per film) were the only MEGA-STARS (mind you, they are not called Super Stars) who were commanding a fee of 3 crores and 1 crores plus per film plus a territory percentage respectively.
Rajnikant still commands the box-office standing even today and no star in India can ever match his fee per film. The openings of his films are always of such a magnitude that one wonders – what the heck! Advance booking of his film opens one week in advance and even before you can think of getting a ticket, three to four days in advance (before the booking window opens), his fans will get up early morning (maybe at 1, 2 or 3 am) and start to queue up to get tickets in advance so that they don’t miss the first day’s shows… Can any Bollywood or Hollywood star ever dream of such fanatics to watch their film on the opening day with so much zeal, dedication, perseverance, patients, craze… adjectives will run short but the serpentine queue goes on and on…
I have lived in Hyderabad and Chennai. When I saw it for the first time, I was curious and was shocked to death when my friends informed me about the fact. The change in guard is often replaced by friends and relatives from time-to-time but the joy of the first ticket by the fan is hard to believe, to put in words… There is a dance of joy, cry of being the first man to hold the first ticket and jubilation… well, I can go on and on and may even get tired…. But the die-hard fans will patiently stand in the queue to see the first show three-four days even before the advance booking opens its window…
The stars’ huge cutouts may measure anything between 60 to 100 feet high, standing tall like a monument with real flowers garlands, red tilak and flags… near the cinema halls, and at various street (where fan following is great in numbers) corners… the date is kept aside and booked for that special leave from office on the day of the release. Wow! Really amazing in true sense!!! I have stood in that line just once to see Chiranjeevi’s GHARANA MUGUDU (Telugu) for two long days and night with my friends… it was an experience of a life-time! Not even a single moment in those 48 hours plus, one could sleep because there are so many entertaining things happening… fights, petty quarrels, dance and what not…
Now comes the surprising package of the tiresome wait for the day of release… people throng in thousands, some with tickets and many without, just in hope that they would get in black… needless to say, the first show tickets are exorbitantly selling like hot cakes and there are chances that you may sit just next to the person who sold you the tickets… The fans wait in silence till the time the first reel unfolds… and then… there is a huge uproar deafening your ears to the hilt, with whistles, clapping sounds and voices… As the hero enters… hold your breath please…. Coins in hundreds will be thrown on the screen, showering from balcony to lower stalls… the sound of coins falling on the ground and whistles amaze you as to what exactly is happening in the hall… For the first five minutes of the film, one cannot really hear what the hero is saying…
Every now and then, a dialogue is delivered, there are clapping sounds and whistles to follow and each time the villain is bashed up, more noises follow… movie-mania in Southern India (especially in Chennai and Hyderabad) is really hard to believe! Devoted fans may not eat a meal a day, but one will not miss the first-day-first-show or donate money to build temples of the stars, they worship… mind you, I have not used the word ‘LOVE’ here… because in Southern India, stars are worshipped not loved, like in Bollywood or Hollywood, which fades away from time-to-time. Their faith in their respective stars is life-long and never fades away even if the film is not worthy to be a mega-success! Movie-mania in Southern India is an experience one can relive to tell again and again, with zeal and enthusiasm…
While writing this piece, I have relived those two days in line and it is a joy that I wanted to share with one and all…
Bollywood stars may be popular worldwide but the craze of devoted fan-following is nothing as compared to our desi-sambar Southern style… you have to see and experience the euphoria to believe it! They will do anything and everything that one cannot imagine to follow their stars… while the crores fee per film by A-graders has just brought Bollywood in limelight… way ahead, Rajnikant and Vijaya Shanti (when Amitabh Bachchan was drawing 60-70 lakhs per film) were the only MEGA-STARS (mind you, they are not called Super Stars) who were commanding a fee of 3 crores and 1 crores plus per film plus a territory percentage respectively.
Rajnikant still commands the box-office standing even today and no star in India can ever match his fee per film. The openings of his films are always of such a magnitude that one wonders – what the heck! Advance booking of his film opens one week in advance and even before you can think of getting a ticket, three to four days in advance (before the booking window opens), his fans will get up early morning (maybe at 1, 2 or 3 am) and start to queue up to get tickets in advance so that they don’t miss the first day’s shows… Can any Bollywood or Hollywood star ever dream of such fanatics to watch their film on the opening day with so much zeal, dedication, perseverance, patients, craze… adjectives will run short but the serpentine queue goes on and on…
I have lived in Hyderabad and Chennai. When I saw it for the first time, I was curious and was shocked to death when my friends informed me about the fact. The change in guard is often replaced by friends and relatives from time-to-time but the joy of the first ticket by the fan is hard to believe, to put in words… There is a dance of joy, cry of being the first man to hold the first ticket and jubilation… well, I can go on and on and may even get tired…. But the die-hard fans will patiently stand in the queue to see the first show three-four days even before the advance booking opens its window…
The stars’ huge cutouts may measure anything between 60 to 100 feet high, standing tall like a monument with real flowers garlands, red tilak and flags… near the cinema halls, and at various street (where fan following is great in numbers) corners… the date is kept aside and booked for that special leave from office on the day of the release. Wow! Really amazing in true sense!!! I have stood in that line just once to see Chiranjeevi’s GHARANA MUGUDU (Telugu) for two long days and night with my friends… it was an experience of a life-time! Not even a single moment in those 48 hours plus, one could sleep because there are so many entertaining things happening… fights, petty quarrels, dance and what not…
Now comes the surprising package of the tiresome wait for the day of release… people throng in thousands, some with tickets and many without, just in hope that they would get in black… needless to say, the first show tickets are exorbitantly selling like hot cakes and there are chances that you may sit just next to the person who sold you the tickets… The fans wait in silence till the time the first reel unfolds… and then… there is a huge uproar deafening your ears to the hilt, with whistles, clapping sounds and voices… As the hero enters… hold your breath please…. Coins in hundreds will be thrown on the screen, showering from balcony to lower stalls… the sound of coins falling on the ground and whistles amaze you as to what exactly is happening in the hall… For the first five minutes of the film, one cannot really hear what the hero is saying…
Every now and then, a dialogue is delivered, there are clapping sounds and whistles to follow and each time the villain is bashed up, more noises follow… movie-mania in Southern India (especially in Chennai and Hyderabad) is really hard to believe! Devoted fans may not eat a meal a day, but one will not miss the first-day-first-show or donate money to build temples of the stars, they worship… mind you, I have not used the word ‘LOVE’ here… because in Southern India, stars are worshipped not loved, like in Bollywood or Hollywood, which fades away from time-to-time. Their faith in their respective stars is life-long and never fades away even if the film is not worthy to be a mega-success! Movie-mania in Southern India is an experience one can relive to tell again and again, with zeal and enthusiasm…
While writing this piece, I have relived those two days in line and it is a joy that I wanted to share with one and all…
No comments:
Post a Comment