Mama, what's an ex? Taking kids to see movies they shouldn't be seeing

Watching trash cinema is an occupational hazard for me. One I take on my chin bravely, and slave through for God and country. But every time I see a trash film, I realise that what can be worse is what one has to endure while watching a film – not on screen, but from the audience. For example, what’s worse than watching a bizarre film like I, Me Aur Main? To watch it next to a 5-year-old who you can see being steadily emotionally scarred as the film progresses. Maybe not as scarred as I was, but still. This is a phenomenon which I have noticed for the last 20 years. Parents take their kids along to watch the most inappropriate films. Without a care in the world. I remember sitting down to watch M Night Shyamalan’s The Happening. Again, a horribly wretched film. Then a young child (3 or 4 years old) walked in with his dad. In the first few scenes of the film, a woman takes her knitting needle and stabs herself in the neck – on screen. The father next to me, simply clamped his hand over the boy’s eyes, while the boy kept yelping “Pappa kya ho raha hain, dekhne do”. And then, since people just randomly keep killing themselves in this film at intervals of 10 seconds, the father spent the entire duration of the film with his hand clamped over the little boy’s eyes. While I had to suffer not just the film, but also the young boy’s plaintive pleas to be allowed to watch a film he’d been brought to see. Another director whose films seem to be favourites for “the entire family to see”, even if the family includes a newborn baby – are Ram Gopal Verma’s. I have sat through Bhoot and Sarkar with RGV’s over-the-top acoustics and people being riddled with bullets and abuses being hurled all over the place in Dolby sound – with little babies for company. Babies who most probably became little deaf babies after the film was over. What was worse than watching RGV’s tripe with a shrieking child providing an alternative soundtrack, was watching Race with a little boy next to me. Race, yes the masterful film in which Anil Kapoor routinely spoke directly to Sameera Reddy’s breasts or pawed her or made obscene gestures with fruits at her and then Bipasha seduced — as far as I recall — the entire male cast of the film. And then we wonder why little boys in Delhi see nothing wrong in treating women like they’re their sex toys. [caption id=“attachment_647751” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  I, Me aur Main is definitely not a film for kids. Image from IBN-Live[/caption] In I, Me aur Main, the mother who’d brought along her little daughter went off to buy her lots of snacks to keep her occupied during the film. Leaving me to baby-sit. The child seemed very bright when I chatted with her, so I’m assuming she’d understand what was taking place on screen. And sure enough, the film began with John Abraham emerging from giving Chitrangada a little touch of oral sex. To which the little kid said, “Mamma what was he doing?” To which the mother said, “Eat your chips”. This was followed by “Mamma what’s an ex?” To which the mum said, “Something you’ll have a lot of when you grow up”. Okay no, I just wish she’d said that. But she came up with, “Something that’s happened before”. The next question was, “Mamma how is she pregnant?” followed by “Why is he saying he’s not the father?” and “If I can’t see it why are you watching?” when Johnny was playing tonsil-tennis with Chitrangada and Prachi Desai. At one point I wanted to lean over and ask the woman, who looked the same age as me, why she was doing this to her child. But I held my peace. At least unlike some parents, she didn’t tell the kid to “go play if you’re bored”. Which is very good advice usually, till the kids start playing. And they do so by running up and down the aisle while you’re watching Apocalypto. I have to say that of the three cities I’ve spent most time in, Mumbai has the best behaved film audiences. People actually keep quiet and pay attention to a film while watching it. Calcutta has the most aggressive, surprisingly. You can hear people shout at errant parents in the pitch-darkness of the hall, asking them to leave with their babies. It usually works. Delhi as usual takes the cake for the worst cinema hall etiquette. If it isn’t Pammi aunty telling Ramu “raat ke liye mooli ka paratha bana dena, theek hai? Par aap wo ekdum mat khaana. Aap sookha chapatti aur chaar din purana sabzi kha lena”, or Jasjeet checking his SMSes on his big iPhone screen so that you’re blinded while sitting behind him, it’s Mr and Mrs Upstart with their newborn infant who they’ve brought along to watch Passion Of The Christ. What’s amazing is that if you can afford to buy two tickets for a multiplex every weekend, you can surely afford a nanny. Or if you don’t want to leave the baby with a nanny (and I have spotted people making their maids sit outside the hall while they take the baby in to deafen it), maybe they could download the film or get a DVD. I’m all for procreation, but why must I suffer your child’s shrieking through the film I am paying for and you walking up and down the aisles trying to rock it to sleep or clamping your hands over its eyes over its high-pitched protests? Could it be that it’s the deafening decibel levels, the pitch-darkness of the hall and the really bright screen which is driving your child berserk? Going for a film in upwardly mobile India should come with a statutory warning. You might survive the film but you might not survive the audience.