Touring Talkies.

When Shailendra wrote "mere man ki ganga aur there man ki jamna ja.." in 1964 for Raj Kapoor, Vyjayanthimala starter Sangam, also directed by Raj Kapoor little did he know that people will take another meaning of these lines like they were used to, for Dada Kondke lyrics. This depended on the people who wanted to use a different meaning out of just about any song or sentence. But that apart when released the film was a superhit. Unlike these days over 56 years back the movie would be first released in a few metropolitan cities like Bombay and Delhi as initially only few prints would be made and depending on the response more prints of the film would be developed and sent out to across the country for release. Raj Kapoor indeed was a big name in the industry so it was unlikely that the film will not be a hit. It was a silver jubilee movie(running for 25 weeks for all four shows in a theatre) and later became a golden jubilee ( 50 weeks non stop) superhit. Distributors will charge theatres who want to run the movie in their cinema halls depending on these ratings and also on the star cast. Everything was perfect for Sangam, a hit star cast, director, lyricist, music by Shankar Jaikishan and singers like Mohd Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar. So obviously theatre owners had to shell out quite some money and commit rent for at least 4 weeks if not more and their investments in such movies always resulted in big profits through ticket sales that often attracted black marketed tickets that they themselves will control .. not sure if current generation is aware of this but back then for popular movies, outside the cinema halls counter sale will open for 5 or 10 minutes and the counter will show a board "Sold". But out side the ticket counter you could buy tickets from people with a handkerchief tied to their neck and with one or two open buttoned shirts, shouting " balcony ka10 waala 25 men" " stall Ka 5 waala 10 men" and so on. People would be happy even if they got at that price. For hit movies even cops would make a lot, either by snatching tickets from these agents or by the money offered by these black marketeers. First day, first show on the movies released usually on Fridays would command double that price at times, so movie watching on Friday 1st show was reserved for rich people or very keen enthusiasts only. 

In Betma, however, there were no permanent theatres. During the holiday season when schools were shut some men will set up a "Touring Talkies". These were like circuses of those days. On an empty patch of land when there is still time for sowing new crop they would the place on rent and cover all four sides using temporary tents with open roof and small opening for people to enter by showing their tickets to the gatekeeper. Inside the "hall" at the back there would be some 5 rows of 20 seats of folding chairs each and in the ground ahead till the screen some 200 people could sit on the leveled ground. Most people entered through the gates but some smart ones usually kids, would also sneak in crawling but when caught they faced canning by green freshly plucked sticks and were thrown out. Tickets were not priced like those in the cities and often times it would be for 50 Paise and Re 1.00 except for popular movies for which it would be double that amount. Since movie could run only when it got dark there would be only two shows and sometimes just one depending on the response from audience. There would be full house on the weekly bazaar (called haat) days and not so on regular weekdays. The publicity would be through posters put at various places as well as through a tanga moving around that was covered with posters and one or two people shouting over public address system. Usually the tanga would run through the village and sometimes also in the small nearby villages from where people came on weekly bazaar days for their household purchase including some vendors who came to sell their wares. Since it would be crowded on bazaar days with no place for tanga to go through, you may also find someone with a battery operated PAS or just a small "bhopu" (conical footlong equipment) made by an ironsmith shouting loudly. Usually with a small movie poster hanging over his neck. 

The screen would often be a clean white cloth and the 16 mm mobile "RCA/Photophone" projector that had option to run on battery would be the only hardware needed to project the movie. Since Betma was just electrified there was a provision for running the projector on electricity as well.

In the autumn of 1967 owners of Touring Talkies got lot of request for movie Sangam that was released three years back and had made headlines and ran in Indore ( some 14 miles away) nearly a year ago. The owner considered it but the rent was pretty steep and a lot required as deposit to be paid in advance to distributors. That could have given profits but it was also risky. So he came out with an idea and announced the date of Sangam with grand publicity. 

Come the evening with first show of Sangam in Betma and one could see the soaring crowd from at least a mile if not more. Tickets were three times the normal price i.e. Rs 1.50 and Rs 3.00 respectively for stall and balcony (as some would call it) and learning from city cinema goers the owner also resorted to black marketing to make a little more. Soon the show started at the sunset and people were so happy to see Raj Kapoor singing on screen the songs in the voice of playback hero Mohd Rafi but they could not identify Vyjayanthimala as female artist who was also singing on screen songs sung by Lata Mangeshkar. At interval the food hawkers outside also made a killing as they never saw such a crowd earlier. But the crowd was confused although they saw songs like "main ka karoon raam mujhko buddha mil gaya" and "ye mera prem patra padh kar". But something was amiss and they couldn't figure out what. 

Soon after the interval the most popular song " mere man ki ganga aur tere man ki jamna" came on the speakers but long before the song got over, Raj Kapoor was having some dialogue with the heroine. That was the time when cine-goers realised that they were taken for a ride and that they were fooled by showing some other movie also whenever the song time came Sangam songs were played making movie audio silent. Soon after that there were riots and stampede and spectators made a havoc, broke the chairs and tore off the tent and the screen. Such was a chaos that police was called to restore the situation. After pocketing substantial money from owner they shoo away the crowd. No one was given any refund. It was such a disaster that the Touring Talkies had to run away overnight and was never seen again in Betma.

What had happened was that owner got a "brilliant" brain wave when he saw the demand and instead of  Raj Kapoor - Vyjayanthimala colour movie SANGAM (1964) he hired Raj Kapoor-Rehana starrer SARGAM (a 1950 black and white movie) Raj Kapoor was a bigger star who was seen on the screen and people thought may be Vyjayanthimala looked different in the movie with the make-up. They enjoyed all the songs till interval although the sequencing was changed and the operator kept the most famous "mere man ki ganga.." for post interval.

This smartness ruined the Touring Talkies owner but still makes me laugh whenever I remember the incidence.