Love of Cinema: A Childhood Passion

Memories of Growing Up with Movies in India and Beyond

Cinema has been one of the three great passions of my life since childhood—the other two being reading and music. This is not to say I was indifferent to sports. I loved cricket, football, kabaddi, and especially badminton. Yet my late mother was a strict parent, often limiting my time outdoors. Like most children, I would sneak out whenever opportunity presented itself—and since both my parents worked, such opportunities were plentiful. Still, my overriding passion was reading and watching television or movies.

The first film I remember watching was a South African production titled Lost in the Desert. I must have been three or four years old. It told the story of a young boy who sets out on a plane ride with his dog, accompanied by a pilot friend of his father. Midway through the journey, the plane crashes into the Kalahari Desert, killing the pilot but leaving the boy and his dog alive. The film follows their struggle to survive—dehydration, encounters with wild animals, the relentless heat—until they are finally rescued. I was deeply impressed, though for years afterward I lived with the irrational fear that any low-flying plane would crash and carve a crater in the earth.

From then on, I became a devoted fan of cinema, embracing both Indian and Hollywood films. My mother, however, encouraged us to watch mostly Hollywood productions, believing they would broaden our horizons and improve our English. As a child, I resented missing the popular Hindi films of the time—those starring Dharmendra, Jeetendra, the great Amitabh Bachchan, and the immensely beloved Rajesh Khanna. Khanna was the people’s favourite on Doordarshan’s Sunday evening slot; streets would empty whenever one of his films aired. Yet today I appreciate that my mother introduced us to Hollywood classics: epics like Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments; westerns such as Mackenna’s Gold and The Magnificent Seven; war dramas like The Guns of Navarone; disaster spectacles like The Towering Inferno; and comedies such as The Great Race. These films opened new worlds, teaching us about ancient Rome, Egypt, and the modern cultures of America and England. To this day, I cherish both Hollywood and Bollywood.

My chance to watch old Bollywood films came during school vacations, when I travelled with my siblings to our hometown in Gujarat, a few hours from Bombay. As a child, those few hours felt like a journey to the moon. After the train ride came a bus journey of another hour and a half—interminable in those days. The village boasted two cinemas: Ambika, an open-air theatre on the outskirts, and Pratap Cinema, a proper hall in the village itself. Both were visible from the bus, one on each side of the road. As we neared Ambika, our tiredness vanished as we craned our necks to see which film was playing. Moments later, we would rush to the other side to glimpse the marquee at Pratap Cinema.

Armed with this knowledge, we would arrive at our maternal grandfather’s house, take his blessings, and greet aunts, uncles, and cousins. After a decent interval of ten or fifteen minutes, we children would begin our campaign to convince the elders to give us money for tickets. Eventually, one of my uncles—God bless his departed soul—would slip us a five-rupee note, enough in those days to buy tickets for all three of us. That was how I finally fulfilled my desire to watch the films of Dharmendra, Jeetendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna, Rishi Kapoor, and other stars of the era.

As a teenager, I dated a girl who shared my love of movies and reading. Together we devoured films, Hindi and Hollywood alike, sometimes watching two back-to-back shows in a single day. I managed to catch most of the Amitabh Bachchan films I had missed growing up, and our shared passion made those years unforgettable.

The younger generation today, with instant access to entertainment through television, laptops, mobiles, OTT platforms, and cable, cannot begin to understand the thrill of going to the movies in our time. Back then, there was only Doordarshan. The mere announcement that we would be going to a film days later was cause for boasting among friends and sleepless nights in anticipation. And woe to the day if, by some chance, the plan was cancelled—the disappointment was palpable, as if someone had died. Conversely, if an impromptu plan was made, the shrieks of joy, the hurried washing and dressing, the restlessness during the journey, the mounting excitement as we reached the theatre, and the awe as we settled into our seats—all of it was unforgettable. We children never critiqued the films; we simply surrendered to the joy of cinema, letting the story wash over us, while the adults debated its merits.

Such was the joy of cinema in those days. Going to watch a movie was an event. People dressed with care: women in fine sarees or dresses, men in crisply ironed shirts and trousers. In certain sections of town, arriving in shorts and chappals was unheard of. Theatres in Bombay such as Eros, Sterling, New Excelsior, New Empire, Liberty, Metro, Regal, and Strand screened only English films in the 1970s. At the risk of sounding snobbish, I can say that the audiences in these theatres were the elite and educated, their dressing sense elegant and refined.

Today, though films still exist, and audiences still enjoy them, the intensity and fascination of that era have faded. The magic of the silver screen, once so rare and overwhelming, has given way to convenience. Yet the memories remain—glowing like the projector’s beam in a darkened hall.