Motion Pictures

Slowly,a trickle streams into the open ground where Amar Touring Talkies has set up its bamboo poles,loudspeakers,sound system and generator sets,covered the enclosed area with white tarpaulin on the sides,secured entrances with ropes and installed the 34-ft-by-14-ft white screen with a black border under the open sky. The two projectors secured inside the green truck—which also holds a DVD player,rectifier,mike,safe and controls for lights and generators—are ready for action.

Massa hurriedly scrambles down the van to rewind the spools of Maidan-e-Jung on what looks like a spinning wheel but is called ‘the rewinder’. In seconds,a crowd gathers around him. Outside,the ticket booth has opened its window and tickets priced at Rs 15 sell briskly as families with chatais tucked under their arms,groups of youngsters and a clutch of kids shuffle into the enclosure to catch the trailers of Raaz and Diljale.

By 10 p.m.,Asan Bagwan,the 55-year-old owner of Amar Touring Talkies,has decided that he has a big enough crowd. A few villagers,who had been debating outside on whether to opt for Maiden-e-Jung at Amar Talkies or Arjun—The Warrior at the nearby Balkrishna Touring Talkies,also walk in,lured by the sound of the first scene that has the hero perched atop a mountain about to attack a convoy. Claps and whistles fill the air. Mayani’s ten-day tryst with touring talkies has begun.

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This is the kind of cinematic experience most of rural Maharashtra has grown up with. A tradition that started in the 1960s and,despite all odds,is still alive and on the move in the state.

“The touring talkies started sometime in the ’60s. I started in 1963. In those days,people would buy an old truck,paint it in bright colours and fit it with projectors. You could get second-hand Japanese or German projectors for Rs 7,000. I started my company with a total investment of Rs 20,000,” says 71-year-old Saroj Vasudev Inamdar,owner of Alankar Touring Talkies,one of the oldest in the state. Though there are about 40 touring talkies in the state,only six are active in western Maharashtra,while others operate mainly in the Vidarbha and Marathwada regions.

Typically,the talkies travel to about 10 villages in Satara district from October to April,pitching their tents and screens for 10-15 days at each place to coincide with the religious yatras that take place in those areas. “That is the time when people come in large numbers,including from the surrounding villages,for a darshan at the temple after which they spend time at the mela that comes up simultaneously and at the end of the day,make a beeline for our tambu (tent) screenings,” says Inamdar,sweeping a glance at the fair being put together a few metres away.

A giant Ferris wheel is already up,as are some colourful rides,including a ‘Brake Dance’ canopy. Sweet shops with their colourful shamianas have started to line the road outside the open field,stacking up bright yellow jalebis. The Yashwant Baba Yatra is held every year in Mayani for 10 to 15 days in March. This is also the only time that villagers get to watch movies on 35 mm,with six screens simultaneously showing films in the open area from six in the evening to six in the morning.

“People come with their families and spend the entire night watching films. They catch one show at one talkie at 6 p.m.,then decide which one to see at 9 p.m.,followed by two more shows,one at midnight and the following at 3 a.m.,” says Bagwan,whose father started Amar Talkies years ago along with his brothers. Earlier in the day,his tempos had made the round of the village to announce the screening of Maidan-e-Jung and distributed pamphlets.

Across the road,Balkrishna Touring Talkies is screening Arjun—the Warrior. The two companies have little competition today as the other four—Alankar Talkies,Anup Talkies,Krishna Koyal Talkies and Laxmi Talkies—will only set up their paraphernalia the next day. No one is unduly worried. They know the crowds will keep coming for the next10 days to each of the six screenings.

“Masur,a neighbouring village,was a bit low-key but Mayani should be better,” says Inamdar. By the end of March,the talkies will move to Shignapur,and then they will go into overdrive. “In Shignapur,we will have screenings 24 hours a day. Here in Mayani,we couldn’t pitch the tents because of the winds,but there,we will put up tents on the hillsides. We hope to draw over 500 people for every show. We were the first people to devise the concept of black tents in 1994,after which the screening of films in daytime became possible,” says Nitin Deshpande of Alankar Talkies. The movie caravan will roll into other villages—Pusegaon,Pali,Aundh,Kole,Javel—all within 50 to 100 kilometres of each other.

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THE world of touring talkies is a self-contained one. The 10-odd people who travel with each unit carry their utensils,beds and belongings. The owners,most of whom hail from Vaduj in Satara district,make it a point to be there during the screenings. Working just six months a year on the talkies,most have other businesses ranging from agriculture to small stores. The employees,most of whom are now in their sixties,are old hands,recruited when they were in their twenties.

By now,they know just what the audience wants. The most popular films,they say,are Marathi,followed by South Indian action films. “Hindi and English (dubbed in Hindi) don’t do too well here. Once,when we were about to show Dhoom at one of the villages,people tore down the poster and asked us to show the Marathi hit Harve Kumkum,” says Tushar Tarlekar,a unit worker with Amar Talkies. Tarlekar travels six months with the group,earning a total of Rs 10,000. When he is not touring,he helps his mother run an eatery in Satara.

Interestingly enough,some of the talkies even manage to hold a premiere of some Marathi movies and get actors like Milind Gunaji or Upendra Limaye to put in an appearance at the show. Most owners are also distributors and that helps bring in popular films. Anup Talkies is one of the few companies that has showed Hollywood films dubbed in Hindi. “I showed 2012 at the last place and it had a reasonably good response,” says owner Anup Jagdale.

The owners have also worked out their own formula for attracting crowds. “Mythological films are great hits. We also prefer them as they attract women and women always come with their children or husbands,which means more numbers. But women don’t stay late. So we show these films first. The late night screenings are confined to action films as there are only men left in the audience by then,” says Bagwan.

According to Jagdale,who is also president of the Touring Talkies Association of Western Maharashtra,there is a tacit understanding amongst all members that there will be no screening of adult or “bold” films. And while there are stories of people demanding the rewinding of such scenes or a steamy song,owners say they do not really give in to the ‘once more’ cries.

A six-month travelling stint costs each company approximately Rs 70,000 and the profits are unpredictable. In fact,the dwindling fortunes of the talkies are a matter of concern for the owners. “There is little left in this business now,” says Bagwan,who has decided against travelling to any other village and will only participate in the yatra in his hometown Mayani.

TV,cable and cheap CDs available in the market make it tough for the talkies,they say. “We are housefull only during the main one or two days of the fair. The rest of the time,it’s a struggle,” says Bagwan.

The tough times get the owners nostalgic about the good old days. While Inamdar feels that the ’70s were the best period for him,Deshpande says the golden period was 1994-2000. “Cable and TV had still not taken over so much then. But today’s times are bad,” says Deshpande,who lives in Pune and works in the construction industry while his father and brothers handle the family business in the village.

Yet,no one is quite ready to sound a curtain call. Vijay Mane,a clerk in a school in Mayani,and a regular at the shows during the talkies’ 10-day annual halt in his village,insists that nothing can replicate the ambience of open-air viewing with family and friends. “There’s a certain magic to it. We have multiplexes in Vitha and Karad nearby but there’s nothing like the talkies,” he says.

But there is little getting away from the fact that the industry desperately needs a new lease of life. Something that the occasional spotlight on it has failed to deliver—be it the 2006 film Truck of Dreams by London-based film maker Arun Kumar on a young village girl who abandons her life and follows her dreams with the help of a travelling cinema,or Israeli-born combat photographer Torgovnik’s photo-essay on the talkies as part of a larger work. Will Road,Movie be able to do better? No one is quite sure. But what they are sure about is that the show must go on.