Let's go to the movies!

Movie posters plaster most flat surfaces in Chennai. Well, movie posters and political propaganda. Pudgy mustachioed men pose with one of two accessories: a shiny gun or a shapely gal. In reality, the latter pairing is a much more likely but equally as disturbing as the former.

This city is home to Kollywood, the Tamil language answer to Bollywood. While Matt speaks excellent Tamil, my language skills are limited to words like "no", "rice", and "ginger". I think an entire movie in Tamil might be above my level of comprehension. This is only the first of many reasons we were hesitant to go to the movies in Chennai. Our other reservations were based on reports from American friends who ventured in to Indian movie houses. But I will get to these later.

Because film is so important here, movies are shown all day long starting early in the morning. One would think that with so many showings it would be easy to get tickets. Incorrect. It can take several weeks to get tickets to new English films. I have never had to plan a night at the movies so far in advance!

A few weeks ago Matt and I finally had the push we needed make our first trip to Sathyam Theatres. A friend from the German consulate and his wife invited us to see Avatar. They took care of reserving our tickets so all we had to do was show up.

As we pulled in to the lot our friend warned us that the parking might seem crazy, but he assured us that they would work. He was right. When we pulled into the lot we told the attendant which movie we were going to see. He then flagged us to join the line of cars whose owners were also going to see Avatar. We parked bumper to bumper in the neatest line I have seen in Chennai. Matt and I exchanged puzzled looks and started asking questions like:

- "How will this ever work?"

- "You mean to say this whole line of cars has to wait for the person in front of them to leave?"

The interior of the theater was not nearly as organized. Men and women enter through different lines for gender-specific security checks. Meeting up once inside, we had to make sense of the stairs/elevators to determine where to go. Once we made it to the correct floor it was time to check out the concession stand. The movie started at 6:30, which means it was right in the middle of dinner time. We were excited to see all of the choices of yummy food such as chicken and vegetable filled pastries, cheesy nachos, and several varieties of dessert. Come to find out they only had pre-packaged sandwiches and popcorn. That made our decision very easy.

Next we picked up our 3-D glasses and headed in to the auditorium to join a truly Indian audience. Entire families chatted together waiting for the movie to begin. Every third person carried on audible conversations on his cell phone. Every fourth person received a call to a catchy and familiar ring that doubles as many cars' back-up warning. I wasn't so naive to believe that all of this activity would cease as soon as the lights went down.

Excitement spread through the theater as the movie started and half of the audience fumbled to fit the 3-D glasses over their usual "specs". Luckily, six months in country had prepared us for our trip to the movies. This means we were able to tune out all of the talking and cell phone ringing of our fellow movie-goers. We didn't even mind people standing up and climbing through the aisles! We weren't perturbed but actually amused when the movie stopped not only mid-scene but mid-sentence for a twenty minute intermission. The second half of the movie passed much like the first and ended with applause and a mad dash to the door.

I am pleased to say that our friend was absolutely correct about the parking situation. When we left the movie we were shocked to see that as we reached our car, the person in front of us was pulling away and the person behind us was getting in their car at the same time! How does it happen? I have no earthly idea but I think it's ingenious.

In the end, we were very glad we waited as long as we did to go to the movies. Knowing what to expect and having a better understanding of local custom helped us enjoy the movie much more than we would have had we seen one in our first few months! This is yet another example that the culture is becoming less shocking by the day. Perhaps I will soon be ready to forget about the language barrier and immerse myself in Kollywood!