A crowd of 50 or more stood, nay, squeezed themselves up the rusty gates of the old, Kasi theatre. On Tuesday morning, many had sought permission to show up a little late at their workplace, with this plan in mind since last week. Others heard about it last night and showed up at the gates of the theatre at 8 a.m. on the dot. All assembled in their work clothes, hungrily eyeing the doors to the theatre’s office with only one thing in mind: Kabali FDFS (First Day First Show).
Everybody wanted to begin Friday morning with Kabali. Recognised as one of the “maas” (an urban neologism for anything ‘cool’ or ‘rad’) theatres in Chennai, Kasi Theatre offered the sale of tickets worth Rs. 250 each for Rajinikanth’s Kabali – specifically the 5 AM show. With the number of people waiting increasing by the minute, the crowd grew restless. Kasi Theatre had, in the past, dealt with broken glass doors and chairs. The crowd on Tuesday morning wasn’t new to it.
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The gates opened a little after 8:30 a.m. and within seconds, a stampede occurred. Men fell to the ground and had footprints all over their neatly ironed shirts. It wasn’t a time to pick fights, they realised, cursing under their breath while running towards the theatre’s office.
The first person to get in, a twenty-something young man dressed in a casual t-shirt and shorts, wore the largest smile at the venue. People at the fag end of the line to the theatre’s office looked on, eyeing that white piece of paper in his hand. Everything was fine until he studied the ticket: “Movie Name: Kabali (U) Tamil. Date: 23-07-16 Saturday, 11:45 AM”. The next few minutes, he screamed and yelled at the theatre officials, before finally announcing to all those waiting in the line, “Kabali only Saturday show! One ticket per person!”
A collective wave of disappointment spread across the faces of the people waiting. But nobody dared not book tickets for the film. “Irundhallum paapom (It’s okay, we’ll still watch),” most said, in a way of reassuring themselves that it wasn’t the end of the world. A little more than half an hour and the crowd thinned down. The men with the tickets, left for work while a new crowd made its way to the long line. When asked to pose for the camera, some men deliberately refused to smile. Nobody took selfies either. “It’s not first-day, first-show, why should we smile?” said one. “I’ll try at some other place for Friday’s show. This is just when all else fails,” said another. Kasi Theatre is one of the many theatres in Tamil Nadu that has seemingly run out of Friday’s show’s tickets. Some are hopeful as there are other theatres that are yet to start booking.
Meanwhile, given the dearth of tickets for the scores of fans in the state, there is a surge in pricing in many theatres. A man named Devarajan from Chennai had even approached the Madras High Court, filing a petition to ban the film. His reason was the fact that tickets are being sold at exorbitant rates. In response, the Madras HC said, “If fans are willing to pay such prices, how can we ban the film based on those grounds.”
With inputs from Dani Charles.
