The Memoirs of an Eighty year old- Episode I

Episode: The Talkies and Theaters

On a cold Monday evening I went to the grandparent’s house and as usual my grandma was watching her daily soap with grandpa dong his version of translation of the dialogues from Hindi to Telugu for fun. Then suddenly came the topic of translators used in movie theaters back then and how hilarious it was.

Grandpa began to tell me the procedure of going to the cinema theater and watching the film in the 1940’s and 50’s when he was in middle and high school.

Born and brought up in a village that was pretty far from the nearest town, he says life was good. Back then the films were only Black & White and released first in the major towns followed by the smaller towns and then finally came the turn of the villages. Every 3 villages had a small theater in the village that was biggest among those. He called the theater as the Touring Talkies.

The mode of travel from their village to the theater was a bullock cart with a tent or dome covering the passengers’ seat to protect them from outside weather. The cart had two bulls in tandem and an uncle or the father usually drove it. Since most families were big in number and lived together, the kids were taken to the cinemas separately by mostly the males of the family. After reaching the theater some grass was placed in front of the bulls and the carts were all lined neatly unlike our haphazard parking these days.

The seating arrangement in the theaters had three classes- Floor sating, Bench seating and Chair seating with floor being the cheapest. The younger ones of the family had the floor seating tickets while the elders had bench class. Only the ones considered rich took tickets for the chair class. So the families tried to arrive first at the theater and the younger ones ran inside to occupy their places on the block that separated the floor class to bench class. The elders sat immediately behind their children.

Grandpa continues, saying that the films then were longer in duration with a minimum of 3 hours and 3-4 intervals in between. The elders checked and counted their younger ones to make sure all were present. Vendors sold roasted nuts and special books which had the story of the cinema they were watching along with all the lyrics of the songs from it. He says these books are treasures and that people of his age group know all these songs by heart.

Some films from other languages, especially Tamil were also showed at times and then came the translators who were hired by the theater owners to translate the dialogues to Telugu. This grandpa says was so funny sometimes as the translators were not really proficient and ended up changing the meaning sometimes.

Once the movie ended the younger ones had to stand in a line near the entrance gates to get counted again and then the families left for their homes.