My childhood unfolded in a town where news, like much else, arrived with a noticeable delay. Daily newspapers from Calcutta were always a day old, and cinematic experiences trailed even further, typically found in dilapidated, smoke-filled theaters. Yet, for a significant portion of my early years, cinema halls were not a part of my reality. This lag was simply another accepted facet of life in the 1980s, much like the ubiquitous pine trees, the mists that perpetually wreathed the hills, and the sudden, enforced pockets of stillness that descended whenever curfew was imposed on this tranquil northeastern outpost.
My parents, however, spoke of a different era. They recalled a time when the town remained vibrant after dark, when they could freely wander the streets and attend evening screenings of Bengali films at the old Kelvin cinema in Police Bazaar with their friends. Such nocturnal escapades seemed utterly foreign to the town I knew. A year before my birth, sectarian riots had fractured the community, transforming it into a landscape of divided neighborhoods. Consequently, everyone was expected to be safely indoors, or at least within their immediate locality, within an hour of the blue-grey dusk drawing its curtain across the town.
Nevertheless, the magic of movies eventually found its way to us. Initially, it was a trickle: the weekly Chitrahaar and a feature film every Sunday on state-run television. Then, almost overnight, it became a torrent with the advent of video cassette libraries and the VCR. We were, it turned out, belated participants in the "video revolution" that had already swept across the rest of the country four or five years prior. This tardiness, however, did nothing to diminish our excitement. The very names of the new video cassette libraries that sprang up in our part of town—Eureka, Needo, Aristo, Electrovision—suggested a departure from the staid establishments like Shah’s Stores or RB Brothers’ or Mampi Stationers’, hinting at an exhilarating new world.
Accessing this new world, however, required a VCR or VCP, devices few homes in our neighborhood could afford at the time. Yet, a solution presented itself through the concept of ‘Bhara’, the Bengali word for rent. We would plead plaintively to the elders at home, and these same video cassette libraries would rent out VCRs. The catch was a tight deadline: three films had to be watched and the machine returned within two days. On the day the VCR was scheduled to arrive, a palpable buzz filled the house. Cooking, chores, and homework were all expedited. Neighbors and their children would flock in, the television room would be meticulously darkened, and with a satisfying click, the cassette would be inserted. Hours later, sometimes after back-to-back screenings, we would emerge as if from a profound dream, groggy and reluctant to return to the harsh reality of daylight.
Even on the small screen, these films unveiled a world brimming with heroism, romance, and injustice, a world where anything seemed possible. I distinctly recall the surge of emotion watching Mazhar Khan in Shaan, portraying a valiant, legless beggar who navigated Bombay on a wooden plank with the air of a king. Equally memorable was the sheer delight of witnessing Hema Malini gracefully leap onto a fan in a police station as Seeta (or perhaps Geeta). We absorbed the melodious names of Bombay’s neighborhoods—Oshiwara, Sakinaka, Borivali, Chinchpokhli—as if they were just around the corner. An exasperated elder might remark, "Tora jeno cinema geelre aarki," meaning, "It’s like you are drinking up all these films."
And indeed, we did, indiscriminately devouring the campiness, the melodrama, and the outright absurdity. For days, I pondered the inexplicable pregnancy of a woman rescued from a storm, freezing and wet, after receiving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from the hero in Ganga Jamuna Saraswati. We watched enough films to predict dialogues, much to our parents’ discomfort. A playmate, during one such movie marathon, piped up, "Ekhoni bolbe dekho, ‘Main tumhare bachhe ki maa banne wali hoo’" (Just wait, she is going to say, ‘I am pregnant with your child’"). We, like sponges, soaked up the wild excess of that decade’s films: Govinda’s zany dances, Sridevi’s sexy buffoonery, the ridiculous villainy of Shakti Kapoor, and the intoxicating allure of a Kimi Katkar, clad in smoking-red, dancing amidst a throng of men. It was as if something within us was loosened, much like the rhythmic juddering of the dhaks during the annual immersion of Durga idols, which invariably drew us onto the streets to dance.
A few years later, when our household acquired its own VCR—a sleek, black Funai—we were unstoppable. Every weekend became dedicated movie time. In retrospect, the adults in the house exhibited extraordinary indulgence. Often, they would pick up films for us on their way back from the evening market, the black cassette nestled amongst tightly coiled greens, dried fish, and an abundance of vegetables. Their parental antennae would occasionally perk up, but for the most curious reasons. I remember the awkward silence and stern expressions on my mother and aunt when my cousin and I requested a copy of Love, a Revathi-Salman film released in 1991. "You should be careful of the films you watch," they cautioned, an ironic statement given that we had already absorbed every lesson Hindi cinema had to offer regarding pyaar, bewafai, and balatkar, only to stumble at the innocence of love.
Another time, an aunt flinched at the thought of us watching Aa Gale Lag Jaa, citing the inherent risks of making eye contact with the shopkeeper and asking for such a title. "No, no, no. I cannot go and tell Dileep from Electrovision, Aa Gale Lag Jaa. It will be a scandal." While she might have shied away from blurring the lines between life and cinema, our neighbor, who lived a few houses up the hill, harbored no such reservations. She was famously known to sigh to her friends during discussions about film songs, "Tarar ki moja. They have all the fun, these actors. They lie on flower beds, dance around trees, sing to each other. Why can’t we be like that?" Then, without missing a beat, she would add, "But it’s not that he doesn’t love me. He keeps the biggest slice of fish for me." The women would snigger at her during gossip sessions, endlessly replaying her words, yet one wonders if they secretly pondered the size of the fish slices they received after their own husbands had eaten their fill.
The impact of Hindi film songs on us was undeniable. Songs were our primary mode of film consumption. They were messages in a bottle from another universe, love letters that stood in for absent lovers—often superior to the films themselves, and endlessly replayable. As a shy, awkward, and plump girl, grappling with feelings of inadequacy, with heroes too distant, and clothes too frumpy, I daydreamed of shedding my physical form and escaping my small-town existence. I adored the melancholy melodies of Hindi films. I would spend hours with the National Panasonic two-in-one, meticulously toggling between the rewind and forward buttons, coaxing it to repeatedly land on my chosen track. Often, it would be Mohammad Rafi’s voice articulating yearning, sourced from a four-cassette collection I had saved up to purchase. Or the startling maturity of Gulzar’s lyrics, which promised a life rich with enigmatic love and profound pain. Sometimes, the destination would be delightfully naughty, like Ila Arun and Alka Yagnik singing "Choli Ke Peechhe Kya Hai." Here I was, trying to navigate the bazaar with a slouch that would conceal my nascent breasts, following my mother’s instructions, only to return home and groove deliriously to two women—alternately raunchy and virginal—singing about what was hidden beneath blouses.
Years later, when I discovered that my hometown’s popular image was that of a rock-pop music hub, where every other person was a Bob Dylan acolyte, I felt a jolt of shock, followed by a pang of shame. I didn’t know the difference between Bob Marley and Bob Dylan until satellite television finally arrived. The homes in my neighborhood housed harmoniums, not guitars. Even the children attending the more exclusive convent schools seemed uninitiated into that world. I felt somewhat like an impostor, definitely uncool—a sensation I was accustomed to, as Bengalis in this town were frequently reminded of their outsider status. One day, walking back from math tuition, a friend—far more conversant in Western music—casually confided that Hindi film music was no longer considered uncool. A.R. Rahman, she declared, had changed everything. The hours I spent watching Channel V and MTV had offered me a glimpse of this shift. Reggae could merge with Punjabi folk, which could in turn blend with ghazal. Bally Sagoo had flicked that switch. Yet, for me, the profound melancholy of old Hindi film music always felt perfectly at home in this town. A pervasive longing seemed to streak our days; we always appeared to be waiting for something to arrive. During the monsoons, the light outside the window itself took on a dark hue. As drizzle intensified into a downpour, with rains relentlessly pounding the tin roof, I would retreat into its resonant shell of sound, the Umrao Jaan soundtrack, and my boundless daydreams.
