The Present:
It has been a year since we moved to the new office at Ulsoor. It has been an
eventful year. Metro has made the travel less tiresome. The cafeteria and the
lovely scenery the terrace offers, makes you feel at the top. However, the
School in front, the market behind, the hospital beside and the petty shops and
carts in and around keeps one grounded. Ulsoor, one of the oldest localities in
Bangalore sandwiched between the richness of MG Road and Indiranagar has held
its own for the past three decades amidst all the development Bangalore boasts
off.
The Quote:
Some days I wish I could go back in life. Not to change anything, but to feel a
few things twice.
Flashback:
I have had some fond memories of Ulsoor. Had watched lot of movies at the
Adarsha theatre till it got closed a couple of years . I still remember us
buying a colour TV for our house from a shop diagonally opposite to the Ulsoor
Police Station. I also remember how my father refused to buy one with the
remote as it was a few hundred rupees more expensive. I still have a second
hand Yamaha keyboard which was brought in a shop, again opposite to the same
Ulsoor Police Station. The board is still there, not sure of the business.
There is used to be a cobbler, a shoe maker rather,
who could make any design you give him from any of the magazines. We would
throng to him every December. Rajyothsava in November used to be a big event
here. Many of my college friends lived here and trip to Ulsoor was a must
during Holi. After a late night college election party, we had walked back from
Webs Ground, MG Road to a friend’s house here to spend the night. More than
anything it was the Maruthi theatre which brings back great memories of Ulsoor
for me.
Yes, there used to be a theatre called “Maruthi” on
the same Cambridge Road of Ulsoor. Our neighbour at my old Sampangi Rama Nagar
house used to be the manager of this theatre. Our only movie going experience
those days had to be with parents. My mother never used to let me go for movies
with friends till I was in 10th. I made it up for all that in the next 2 years
in college is a different story to be told.
Back to the Maruthi theatre, where my neighbour
was a manager and was the person in-charge of the whole theatre. Those were the
days when neighbours were like extended family and he used to take us to his theatre
whenever there was a good movie playing.Catching a BTS bus from Richmond road,
we could reach Ulsoor in 15 minutes. There used to be a double decker bus from
Shivajinagar to Ulsoor. 131 is it? Legends born during 70s would know.
This theatre used to run re-releases of old
classical movies and I ended up watching a lot of those movies. I remember
watching “Enter the Dragon” on its re-release here. Even new movies were played
and with multi cultured population around, all language movies made it here. After
growing up, could book tickets with the
same manager and watched quite a few movies again. I watched Dr. Rajkumar’s
Akasmika, first day here with some 20 friends and the environment during the
‘Huttidare’ song was mind blowing. My last movie in Maruthi theatre before it
got closed down was a movie called ‘Z’. It’s an irony that my last movie here was named after the last letter
of the English alphabet.
More than movies, it was other things of how a movie theatre worked is what I
got to see from closer quarters. I got to see the entire process of movie show,
right from the theatre getting cleaned up, the ticket punched with date and
time seal, the issuing of ticket at the counter, the movie reel getting loaded
into the projector, the eatables getting stocked up for the interval and all
those things.
Those days the movie reels used to be shared among theatres playing the same
movie and the reel prints used to be transported from one theatre to another
for the movie to be played. Every theatre used to have an expert two wheeler
rider who used to do this. He ofcourse used to be late on some days in getting
the box. The life of the sponges of the seats in the theatre greatly depended
on how many times this guy made it on time to the show.
I watched lot of movies from the projector room too.
I remember watching a horror movie ‘My Dear Lisa’ from the projector room as it
was too scary watching it inside the theatre. Listening to the shouts and
whistles from the projector room was completely a different experience. The
sound of the running projector was an experience by itself.
That much for all the beautiful memories of Ulsoor
and Maruthi theatre.
Back to the Present:
A year and half back, our office was to be shifted to a new facility from the
Richmond Road office. A new facility in Ulsoor was selected and we were told it
was on Cambridge Road. As soon as I heard the name 'Cambridge Road', my
memories of Maruthi theatre came back and I knew it was no more there and
something else had come up where it used to be.
Before shifting I had an opportunity to visit the
new place while it was still coming up. Though I visited the new facility, my
eyes were searching for the old Maruthi theatre on Cambridge Road. I could not
figure out where it was situated. While leaving the facility, the curiosity
grew and after coming out, I asked the security of the building if he knew
where the old Maruthi theatre was. He was one of those lakhs of new
Bangaloreans and he did not know. There was an old lady selling newspaper just
near the gate and I asked her the same question and what she told me brought
about a sense of completeness in me. The place where I was standing, where I
would be going to work in few days was the place which carried so many of my
childhood memories, the Maruthi Theatre. Right now, I am sitting and working at
the same place where the Maruthi theatre was.
Every day I enter the office gate, I remember all
those activities at the theatre 3 decades back. The crowd, the ticket counter,
the parking lot, the huge cut outs, the manager’s room etc.
Was the projector room situated exactly at the place
where my cubicle is now? Looks like….....….
