The last two decades have seen a shift in trends for movies and movie-goers in Mumbai. The days of weekend shows being sold out on a Wednesday morning, as hundreds queue up at cinema box office windows, have given way to instant online booking.  Other newer forms of entertainment available in the city, together with the spate of new multiplexes, have resulted in a steadily dwindling audience at the old single-screen cinemas that once dotted the city. The G7 theatre complex in Bandra, better known as ‘Gaiety-Galaxy’, is a set of seven small theatres, which was one of Mumbai’s first multiplexes, built back in the 1970’s. – The city’s only surviving multiplex to dodge the large cinema franchises, it retains a kitschy charm of its own.

 

Abdul Rahim stands outside G7 in the heat, alert and on his feet, rushing out to every person stepping out of a rickshaw outside the theatre gate. His appearance is dirty and he is the scruffiest of all the black market ticket vendors that loiter around the entrance porch.

“I was introduced to black market ticket sale in 1991, when a friend of mine had a ticket for a movie that he could not attend. I was requested to try to sell it off at the theatre,” he says. Abdul sold the ticket, which originally cost 4.50 Rupees, for 15 Rupees!

Abdul had a natural flair for business and saw that black market sales could be a good opportunity to make money – it would be far more lucrative for him than his odd jobs in the catering company. “At 15, I had come to Mumbai, from a village near Silvassa. It was 1988. Initially, I stayed with relatives and worked at restaurants and for a catering company for events and weddings,” remembers Abdul, who soon went on to give up this job and began “full-time” working his way into the black market ticket sales industry.

He first started out at Badal Bijli, a cinema at Matunga, and worked there for several years. He would typically buy some tickets from the box-office in advance and then sell them for a higher price to customers on the day of the show. He would befriend the box-office ticket salesmen as well, who would loan him tickets, even if he did not have the money to pay them upfront, in return for a cut of his profits. Badal Bijli eventually shut down (it was later rebuilt as Starcity Cinema) and Abdul shifted from theatre to theatre before settling into the black market at the G7 complex.

 

It is here, across the G7 ticket counter, that Abdul often meets Bishwas, who sits on the other side of the grille. Bishwas Pawan is an upright senior salesman at the box-office counter. Bishwas disapproves of Abdul’s activities and would admonish him when Abdul requested him for some tickets on loan. “I came to Bombay back in 1967, from Satara, Maharashtra. Looking for work, I found jobs on construction sites as a labourer. I worked on several sites, all over the city before being picked up to work on the construction of a new theatre complex –a new concept and an ambitious project at the time. Being a film buff, I was excited to be working to build the G7 multiplex cinema,” shares Bishwas.

After the construction work was completed, Bishwas convinced the then-owners to allow him to continue working there. He was employed as a janitor at first, but quickly graduated to an usher, then to a ticket collector and ultimately became a ticket sales man at the box-office counters. Now the senior-most of his peers, he has worked at the counter for the last 25 years, while catching films for free as a bonus. His success allowed him to bring the rest of his family to Bombay from Satara 15 years ago and they have lived in Vile Parle since.

Abdul, on the other hand, lives in a room, rented from a friend, in Bandra East, close to the station, and a short walk away from G7 via a footbridge. The uncertainty of his occupation is the main reason the rest of his family has remained at their village.

“Twenty years ago, movies were advertised on hand-painted hoardings and posters – there was limited information available about a new film, which created high levels of anticipation among fans. Opening weekends of every new release would be packed, with all shows going house-full at every cinema,” Bishwas says. “Today, with movie trailer advertisements forced upon us on YouTube, pre-released song videos, interviews and talk-show hype on television, people are able to judge a movie much before its release. While some do well, many films do not even get a full house on its opening weekend anymore.” This is a factor affecting Abdul’s business as well.

 

Abdul knows that the black market ticket industry is dying. – Without the crowds and anticipation around new releases, his profits are limited. While his profits used to be about 300 Rupees a day, it has reduced to about half of that now. He cannot charge too much for a ticket, even if it is in demand, because the people who used to afford his high prices some years ago, all go to upmarket multiplexes and do not visit G7. He needs to keep his profit margins low to be competitive. He manages to reap good profits only during the Diwali, Id and summer holiday seasons, when more movies are released and the number of patrons is higher.

Citing an extreme and contrasting incident from 20 years ago, he says, “A large man – probably some big-shot’s bodyguard, or maybe just an over-zealous, cinema-loving goon – held a gun to my side, threatening me just for a ticket!” It sounds far-fetched in today’s scenario, but Abdul says that back then, it was not so surprising.

Now the only possibility of physical harm that bothers him is the police who occasionally come by the theatre brandishing lathis. The black market ticket vendors run at the sight of them. – Those who do not escape fast enough get beaten. “There is no bribery between us,” Abdul claims, “We don’t make enough profit for that anymore and the police know it.”

 

Bishwas, who does not like fighting and violence in life or on screen, misses the genre of Bollywood comedy films that no one makes anymore. “Tastes and preferences have changed,” he says. “Now people prefer action films with lots of special effects.”

His love for films has a lot to do with his loyalty to the G7 complex. Sitting behind the grille of the box-office window, leaning back comfortably in his chair, he reminisces of bygone years when films were everyone’s favourite source of entertainment; - the fans and the queues at his counter, the anticipation and excitement!

 

Though its crowds have reduced greatly; due to its affordable ticket prices, today, G7 is one of the few places left in the city where one can occasionally still witness the excitement and euphoria of old, as people whistle and dance in the aisles to the dance number of a super-hit film.

 

These remnants of a fading Bollywood fanatic culture keep both these ticket salesmen, who are otherwise so different from one another, going – Bishwas gets a bit of the excitement and joy he  craves while Abdul scrapes out a living from it for as long as he can.