Special Article : Me and the movies!

Sharad Rai | Addiction is addiction, I was addicted to watching movies. A soothing addiction...after watching a movie, I used to feel happy to share my happiness with someone. This was about those days when I had left the service of Indian Navy just because of bunking classes to watch movies. In the family, apart from my father and two uncles, my maternal uncle was also in the Navy. When I joined the Naval Apprentice, I was addicted to watching movies and I had developed this hobby during my school days itself. I was studying in the 9th class when I saw a movie for the first time, the movie was "Samaj ko badal daalo". After watching this movie, I felt that cinema is the medium to bring about revolutionary change in the country. And...cinema became the ideal of my thinking.

Before joining the Navy, when we friends used to defecate sitting on the ridges of the open fields of our village, we used to discuss cinema. I had narrated the story of the film 'Samaj Ko Badal Daalo' to my friends while defecating in the fields. At that time, I did not even know that the hero of that film was Ajay Sahni (whose name was later changed to Parikshit Sahni). It was an interesting experience to discuss cinema. While defecating on the ridge, a friend had narrated the story of the film ' Bank Robbery '. I had sneaked out of school to watch the film without the knowledge of my family. This was the second film I watched. It was from these two films that I understood what a good and a bad game is. Just like watching the play ' Sultana Daku' in the village. After this Babaji had said, 'Boys who do not study, become dacoits like this.'

I remember those days in Naval Dockyard, Mumbai, when I wrote a review of ' Muqaddar Ka Sikandar ' sitting in the engine room three floors below the basement of INS Vikrant, which was parked at the dock. This is also an interesting incident. I had seen a play by theatre worker Snehlata Verma, 'Panchhi Aise Aate Hain'. Writer-actress Verma had told me that her son Master Mayur had played the childhood role of Amitabh Bachchan in the film 'Muqaddar Ka Sikandar'. By then I had developed a liking for writing. I, Mansingh Deep (then a journalist, now a film producer) and Master Mayur watched the film together at Galaxy Talkies. This same Mayur Verma later became the manager of Amitabh Bachchan's film production company ' ABCl '.

My review of the film "Muqaddar Ka Sikandar" was published in Banaras's Aaj newspaper. Then I changed my name to 'Soni' and started writing about films in many newspapers. One day, my officer, Lieutenant Commander T R Malhotra, saw a film article written by me. I came to know that Malhotra sahab was also fond of writing. He had written a story of a film in the form of a screenplay. He called me to his house, showed me the story and said, "Get this story published by some producer." I had got 3 ceiling fans installed in the house of film director Kanak Mishra at a price lower than the Navy canteen in those days. I used to visit his house because of my relationship with Mansingh. Kanak Mishra had made Rajshri Productions' films ' Sawan ko aane do', Sach ko aanch nahi ' with actor Arun Govil in those days. Later, Arun Govil became 'Ram' and nowadays he is also an MP. His sister-in-law Tabassum used to make fun of him. I took Lieutenant Malhotra to Rajshri Productions' film office to narrate the story to him. There, director Kanak Mishra gave me and Lieutenant Commander sahab a warm welcome and also introduced us to Rajshri's head late Tarachand Barjatya. After that, I started finding the world of cinema very fascinating. I started bunking my job at the Naval Dockyard... and eventually I left the job and became a full-time film journalist. All this happened because of my passion for watching movies. Like me, many youngsters have come to Bollywood influenced by the alluring illusion of cinema.

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