Sheela Ki Jawani

Most of my memoirs generally restrict themselves to timeframe of 1988-1995 and there is reason to it this was the time when out of teens we were absorbing all things news like a curious child, together we friends tried the goodies which were on offer in our small town of Dehradun.

Alok,me and other pals although totally restricted by middle class taboos still had unrestricted hormones which had peculiar tendency of behaving like a dam bursting at seams with overflowing liquids ready to submerge anything under its way,lack of outlets and strong morality usually meant for us ‘God helps those who help themselves’ or a putting in chaste hindi ‘Apna haath Jagan Nath’ but then born creatives as we were, without props it all seemed quite dull, having exhausted IIIrd grade hindi pulps, we moved to ‘anonymous’ authors in English simultaneously rare dekko @ ‘Hustler’ or rather spuriously printed rehashed versions generally found on pavements outside bus stands and railway stations prolonged the ecstatic creativity for weeks. Lack of much needed solitude and fiscal support meant VCPs and much used video cassettes was option exercised only at max annually but then it had its own issues which I plan to recap later on…………And than we stumbled upon art house Cinema morning shows of French, Korean movies which were devoured to derive the much needed fodder, we peaked our creativity with ‘Sirroco’ all time favorite of all ‘frustates’ I have kept on tracking career of ‘Mr Roman Polanski’ since then.
Again something was missing as desi appetite can only be whetted with Roti, dal, sambhar, rice, pickle similarly creativity needed much sought after Indianness to it and than we discovered ‘ Digvijay’ and ‘New Empire’ two cinema halls in our beloved Doon, Different permutation and combinations of words like ‘ladki’, ‘Jawani’,’Kam’,’Pyaas’,’Junglee’,’Aag’,’Badan’,’jism’’padosan’,’darinda’ did the magic, December winters made for pitch dark entry on a 1800 hrs show for us in the cinema hall and than we started noticing aged males coming helmeted in the cinema hall and we understood meaning of repressions and frustrations of provincial India.2-3 minutes of add on reels were the highlight for which IVth grade 2.5 hrs Malyalam/Tamil movie had to be endured, stock characters of impotant householder, young mistress, buxom servant lady and lecherous politician speaking in offnote sound track made miserable with Vth grade dubbing,it was almost addictive as a gambling forcing us to waste on a meaningless venture repeatedly without anyone of us getting any better creative inputs.

Now years hence suddenly song ‘Sheela ki Jawani’ of ‘TMKhan’ made me situp and recap the misadventures, I have noticed atleast one of the above mentioned cinema hall in Dehradun on my rare visits still exhibiting similar fare I am not sure in today’s age who could be the audience!!!