Multiplex perplexes

Aradhika  Sharma

Sabrina asked the inevitable post-lunch question: Has anyone brought anything meetha?

Rummaging in her lunch bag, Mandy fished out a small box and triumphantly displayed its contents. 

Shobha: Popcorn for dessert?

Mandy: It’s caramel popcorn. I brought the leftovers from the movies yesterday.

Shobha: I never have any leftover popcorn. It’s so darn expensive that I finish every kernel of it, even though I’m invariably sick afterwards and feel guilty as hell for stuffing myself with sugary, empty calories. 

Me: Me too! I keep telling myself that I won’t buy any of those unhealthy and overpriced snacks from the food bars. But the moment interval is announced, I’m in queue at the snack counter.

Sabrina: Don’t blame yourself. The delicious aroma of popcorn and coffee wafting into the freezing cinema halls puts forth a pretty compelling argument. 

Mandy: Yeah! And when people around you are munching away with glee, you feel a bit cheap for not eating, nahin?

Shobha: Don’t tell me you succumb to the popcorn peer pressure! 

Me: I guess I do. Though shelling out Rs 220 for a popcorn pack that costs 30 bucks outside the mall and Rs 130 for a premixed cup of warm tea does pinch. 

Sabrina: High-end restaurants charge those prices. Wish they would allow us to carry our own snacks inside. 

Mandy: Vaise, I tried to sneak in an apple yesterday, but the woman guard confiscated it. I even held onto my stomach and groaned, pretending to have an upset tummy and even told her that I wasn’t allowed to eat outside food, but she wouldn’t relent. She must’ve eaten it herself.

Sabrina: I’d once hidden granola bars in my socks, but they found those and made me feel like I was sneaking in a bomb or something. 

Shobha: I still shudder to think of how they behaved when they caught Ramesh trying to smuggle in a hip flask. Thodi si vodka hi toh thi!

We munched on the popcorn in silence, ruminating on the perfidies of the cinema staff.

Me: Well, the Bombay High Court opined that cine-goers can’t be prohibited from carrying their own food and water inside multiplexes, because these’re exorbitantly priced there.

Shobha: Really? Wow! I’d love to carry my aloo paranthas and achaar inside the theatres!

Sabrina: You’d fill the entire premises with pungent achaar smell. Just try watching a tender romance, a murder mystery or a space odyssey with odour of bread pakoras or vada-sambar wafting around.

Shobha: I’ll carry sandwiches and cake then. Are you happy now?

Mandy: Candies and juice for the kids.

Me: And flasks full of chai along with disposable glasses like our mothers would do in olden times.

Sabrina: It’s sounding very plebeian yaar. Imagine the greasy seats, litter and odours emanating from swanky multiplexes. Not to mention rats running around and the clamour of “pass the biscuits…Pappu, share your lollipop with Billoo…juice anyone?”

Our enthusiasm was douched with the icy water of Sabrina’s cold realism.

Eventually Mandy said weakly: Maybe they could just sell the food at cheaper prices then?

Now, that is an idea!