We had a team movie night mid-week.
Several of us at work left a bit early and headed over to a nearby theatre to see a new comedy called “Fukrey”. Any resemblance to a curse word in English is purely coincidental.
The title is a slang word without a clear definition.
Co-workers called it that in-between-high-school-and-college funk. One site defined it as “jobless” or “money-less”.
And although this was our second team movie, I forgot again: Movie theatres do not allow cameras. They take that rule Very Seriously. (Though phone cameras don’t seem to matter at all for some reason. Maybe separating people from their phones is un-enforceable.) Anyway, being in a foreign country, I always have my camera on me. And, unlike the other movie theatre we went to last time, this one had no baggage booth (like most stores, supermarkets, and places with similar rules have.) They really searched more of my purse than they usually search. And so one of my co-workers had to miss the first five minutes of the movie to go put my camera back in his car.
Ugh.
The movie itself is apparently very funny, judging by the amount of laughter around me. I understood bits and pieces (the story basically revolved around four people getting in and out of trouble while trying to find enough money to secure a spot at a university), but the funniest stuff was in the dialogue, which I got almost none of. I am baffled that they don’t subtitle movies, especially since Hindi, despite being a national language, is only one of many, many native languages in India. English is more unifying language than Hindi, at least according to what I’ve seen. I got some explanations from my co-workers during the perfectly-timed intermission and after the movie. I have a feeling a lot of the humor wouldn’t translate, but it was still pretty entertaining to watch and guess.
I kept hearing this Hindi word over and over. Matlabh. Apparently, it just means “means”. There was a subplot about interpreting a dream, so that makes sense. New word of the day.
There were not many song and dance numbers in this one (sort of half of one, if that) and so the movie came in at well under three hours. It seems like comedies are not usually musicals? I haven’t seen enough to be sure.
In one scene, one of the characters was wearing a shirt that said, in the style of the “Puma” logo, “Coma” with the puma cat draped across the letters. That was pretty funny. Though I think I spent a lot of the movie trying to figure out how that guy’s turban stayed on and why he wasn’t wearing the usual Sikh turban. The Internet gave me a kind of answer.
According to Wiki, Sikh turbans can be different styles depending on age, religion, region, caste, if it is a special occasion, or if you are playing sports.
(I see the green-styled one in real life all the time, but only see the white-styled one in movies.)
The white-styled one… does not seem as dignified to me.
During the intermission, one of my co-workers ordered soda and popcorn for everyone, which they *delivered* to us at our seats once the movie was going again. Nifty!
As soon as the credits started rolling, everyone immediately stood up even though they were still showing new footage behind the credits (of the four characters finally going to college. And the one guy changing to wear the above green style Sikh turban instead.) The girl next to me said “It’s over,” as if I wasn’t sure what credits meant. I was looking at the screen saying, “but there’s still movie going on.” Besides, I’m a credits person. I always stay to the end of the credits. Apparently even less people do that here than in the U.S. As I’m not going to make people wait for me, I left with them. Then they all paused at the exit doorway to watch the end of the new footage anyway. Ha.
I really have to remember, though, to leave my trash in the theatre. Because there are very few public trash cans. I was lucky to find one. I worked at a movie theatre cleaning up trash after movies so I know it is not a huge deal to clean up, actually. Just my habit to not leave trash around.
On the way home, we took the main highway, saw all the tents along the river for flood refugees. Got stuck in rush hour traffic. And saw a cool sunset over the temple. I figured, I better take photos to make the camera hassle worth it!
Traffic and the Sun over Akshardham