The Ice Age Fiasco

Our Hydie does not have many cinema halls where you can sink in the seat comfortably and glue on to the screen undisturbed, munching buttered popcorns, without the fear of some runty bug crawling into your shirt or your neighbor startling you out of your trance every now and then by his hooting and clapping at every ‘hit and miss’. PVR, Prasads & the IMAX, Gold Spot, newly opened INOX (GVK1 Mall) and Cinemax, and our neighborhood Talkie Town – barely six. The agonies of a Hydie movie addict does not end there.After you guys in the Delhis and Mumbais are done ‘eating and digesting’ the fresh releases, we in Hydie race for the ‘stale’, a week later. Happened for few films of my much awaited films, in the past! Again, the non-Telegus also have to bear with the order of preference – Tollywood comes first followed by Bollywood and Hollywood.

Hence, my MUCH loved Ice-Age 3 was released in only THREE theatres and since I did not book it way in advance, on Friday I see all seats, for the entire weekend, booked. Usually, in such situations I thrust my claws out and spring at D – a woman has to vent her anger somewhere right. But this time, I decided to gulp it down and remember to book tickets way in advance of films I can’t wait to watch.

I could not wait for another weekend and come Monday and I set it up with D and our friend Scarlett.

Me: Ice Age?

D: Sure. But I have a meeting till 7:30

Scarlett: Yoga from 6-7.

Me: Great. I’m booking the 8:20 show.

D & Scarlett: Done.

So the plan was D and me will leave office at 7:30, go home, go pick Scarlett and we all leave for INOX and 50 min was decent time to wrap it all up.

7:30: D & me leave office.

7:40: Reach home. I take Boom down. I wait patiently for him to do his ritualistic sniffing before he could bring himself to poop, but he seemed to be in his sniffing-on-and-on mood. We leave home praying he does not relieve himself in the house and give his poor mother a nauseating time ahead.

8:00: Scarlett calls D to say she’s stuck in a jam and that we should take the other road to her house via Novotel. That said, D’s mobile conks off and we lose touch. I realize, in the hurry I had left my mobile and purse home.

8:10: We reach her house taking the choked, but shorter than the other, road. There was no trace of Scarlett. I raced for her house. But she wasn’t there. And there was no way of contacting her. D and me wait. [I swear to God to never ever leave home without mobile and purse]

8:20: [Movie starts. BOOO HOOOO] Scarlett finally reaches. Seems she took a ‘U’ from the choked road and ended up spending more time travelling. [Scarlett could have gone on her own, but GV1’s parking is spiral and “the most difficult in the world”, as she says, and it’d be late by the time we’re back and we stay close]

8:40: Petrol pump [Wahi baaki thaa…the car was already in reserve and looking at the time I did plead with D to go in Scarlett’s car, but D insisted we take ours). Scarlett suggests we take a new route to dodge the mad traffic at Jubilee Hills Check-post.

I ask D to slow down so that "Ice-Age" ke chakkar meh we do not reach the other Ice-Age [heaven being up there, must be cold, which is why the Angels wear as less as possible and disperse some warmth]

9:00: Apparently, all this while D was thinking Cinemax, whereas our destination was INOX, GVK mall. Which means we travelled around the entire KVR park, which was a short-cut to INOX, only to come to Cinemax, a place only a stone-throw (if it’s a giant throwing the stone) from the Check Post because of D’s misunderstanding. And Scarlett and D starts off with their “What an adventure this will make”, while I lose it and begin my “tum logo ki wajah se” melodrama.

9:10: We FINALLY reach INOX. D goes to park while Scarlett and me race up. After losing our way at least thrice, we reach the Box Office. Thankfully D also joins us just in time [but not without losing 10 more secs checking out the flock of hot babes just outside the hall].

9:15: Trio enter hall. Ellie, Manny, Diego, the two possums and a new character with a pirate-patch on one eye (Buck) were doing the Ice-Age’s characteristic pun and the hall was roaring with laughter. Quietly, we join in….and in no time we crack up......clapping, howling, hooting, falling off our seats…..That’s how we enjoy movies here in Hydie…[even when it is the last 45 min]..