I would like to share a recent experience I had with this theatre which I consider a forgettable one. Every chromepettian who had lived for a few years in Chromepet would be very very familiar about this theatre. The theatre is one of the oldest in the locality and has been very active and popular among the people of Chromepet over the years. Among the youth, this theatre is an icon of chromepet. Right from Superstar to Little super star, they have some fan club or the other fencing the theatre with Name boards, Posters and Hoardings. I agree that I was also once a regular visitor to this theatre. No matter what the ticket price is...People still mob in. It is one of the biggest theatres too with a huge seat capacity compared to many city theatres in Chennai.
Alright, Lets come to the story line..
During my recent trip to India, I decided to go to this theatre to watch a movie named "Padikadhavan" along with my brother and his friends. One of my brother's friend waited in the queue for almost an hour to get tickets for the movie. He waited so long and gladly in the end, got the tickets for all. It needs a great deal of patience and tolerance to get tickets in the counter in this theatre. The ticket stub said the ticket was sold for Rs.8 but the ticket was charged Rs.100. This is not unusual. This is one of the so many notoriusness that the theatre was famous for. Something like A/c which was just a print sake thing in the ticket. The tickets had a seat number on it but my brother said it does not matter at all in this theatre. I was wondering why then they have it?
Finally we got into the theatre and were looking for the seat numbers since we were told at the door that we got to sit according to the seat numbers that day. I was glad that at last they were following some rules in this theatre. We had tickets numbered "FF", whereas the row started from row A and going down all the way to row Z. We thought that it was written "FF" by mistake, so we took the seats in F row. After a while, there were some people claiming the seats to be theirs. We were arguing with them and finally the theatre guy asked both of us to show the ticket stubs and then we were asked to look for our seat numbers in the front. One of my brother's friends walked to the front and then came back saying he did not find the rows AA's or BB's. Then, I started walking all the way to the front and I noticed row AA starting after row Z and the followed it all the way to finally find out that "FF" was the first row of the hall right in front/below the screen. We six people were seated in the first row of the Hall. We knew that it was going to be a arduous deal. It became almost impossible to sit there when we realised that, the mega speakers were on the sides of our row.
It was a horrible experience to watch a movie paying Rs.100 and sitting in the first row. It was the first time experience for me to watch it sitting in first row. In the break, we realised that some of my brother's friends who came very late seated in the last rows below balcony. When we were talking to them, they told us that they got black tickets. Then I realised the fact that, tickets sold at the counter are for the seats that are in the front and black ticketers have the best ones. A revolutionary business strategy!!
After realising that, I felt even more uncomfortable to sit and enjoy the movie. If anyone who gets into this kind of uncomfortable position goes to that theatre again, he/she would obviously go for the black tickets which is just Rs.10 or 20 more, rather than standing and waiting at the counter for such a long time. This is what the theatre management also expects.
Enna Kodumai sir idhu?
Rajesh
