The Cruise That Screwed Us

Anari Talkies, Anirban & Arijit, Childhood, Facts, Humor, Love Story, Movie, Nostalgia, Reviews, Story, Titanic

What is this movie dad?”
“A Hollywood one. Want to watch it?”

And then…

Globe theatre near Lindsay Street. 5 pm in the evening. All I could see were mostly the couples holding each other’s hands and waiting in the queue outside and several school going kids like me have also come with their parents. Watched “Independence Day” in VCR two weeks back and was looking for another adventurous film like that. Kept my fingers crossed for the unknown thrill I was about to experience!

Krrrrrriiinnnngggg!! The bell rang for the next show. The long queue started moving. I entered the dark auditorium with my father and got my tickets checked from the Torch-Uncle, wondering how he could remember the exact 2D seat matrix in that low light!

Lights were dimming out. Soft music started playing. Curtains rolled up. The entire hall plunged into darkness. All I could hear were the whisperings and sounds of crumpling uncle chips.

There it begins…….!!

I’ll never forget the first glimpse of that dinosaur ship. For a moment I thought I was also in that dock. The background score was magically synced up with the moods of all busy passengers.

But wait! What had I just seen?!! Had I seen any woman more stunning than her?? Clean bowled in the first ball of the over. Butterflies in my stomach were looking for a way out. I adjusted my seat and restricted myself from looking into my father’s face.

Kakhon ache oita? Anek khon to hoye gelo!” (When is that thing coming? Much time have already gone!)
Aschhe aschhe, dhoirjo dharo.” (Be patient, its about time.)

The hushing voices came just from my behind along with the sound of pat in someone’s hand. I looked to my left. People were all deeply focused at the big screen. Two black heads in my front row were moving towards each other. The lad was showing his drawing book to the girl. My God!! What was that?! Sketch of a naked lady! I started praying to the Almighty to please give me strength to understand the dialogues. I was a student from a Bengali medium school and was being compelled to guess the lines on my own from their expressions. Surely the girl would slap him and leave the place. But no! She was trying to hide her cutest smile and her heavenly face was beaming with unhidden pleasure to see those sketches. Oh! For a moment I just forgot about the person sitting just beside me. I feared if there were anything more to come. It was turning out to be a different genre of thriller movie to me. Whyyyy!! Whhyyy in this world did I ask my dad to come with me! I could’ve waited for the VCRs to release.

Scene had then been shifted to a sophisticated first class cabin room of the ship. When will the ship start to sink?? When will the suspense begin?? I told myself as I was not there to watch a SRK starrer romantic love story being shot in Switzerland.

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Image Source: bustle.com

The lad opened his bag and brought out a set of pencils. He then took a knife and started sharpening the tips. “Ei !! Eibar hobe!!” (Hey! Now it’ll start!). Voice came from my behind and my seat received a sudden careless kick. Those two black heads in my front row were again close. Right one was whispering something to the left one’s ear. Suddenly it seemed that the entire hall was moving a bit and adjusting their positions. A baby was crying at the upper balcony but it got stopped abnormally, maybe got gagged by his parents. Can someone please explain what’s going to happen now? I was crying for help on my own!

And then, Bang!!!! What did she just do now???!! Why the hell on this earth had I gone to watch this movie! The lady was lying on the sofa all naked and before the ship starts sinking I started doing the same in my own seat. Apparently my two ears were red hot and was about to emit smokes. My inner soul fixed my face with some wooden plaques which were forcing me to look straight at the screen and digest everything happening in front of me. Are those real?? Am I the only one being ashamed of what I’m watching! God knows. At least I’m reborn today! I convinced myself.

Finally! Sigh of relief vibrated through the entire hall. They were running. May they escape the ship and let me watch a thrilling movie rather than putting me in an awkward position again – I prayed. But alas, if director would’ve listened to me!

That’s a car. Let them drive and jump to the sea and finish everything! I urged deeply.

Put your hands on me Jack.

The first sentence from the movie I understood so clearly. Nooooo.. not again pleeeease!! Somebody from back whispered – “Bhai, did you notice the water soaked hand slamming against the window!” A prompt reply came “That’s sweat you dumb!”

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Image Source: teamtsd.com

The first publicly open porn I watched in my life with my dad sitting just beside me! Damn again I would have to watch this movie secretly. And a giant kick in Tanumoy’s ass was also due. He watched the movie a day before and took no responsibility of informing me about all these in advance. It’s always better to have enemies than such friends.

 

Summer of 1998. That’s the story of a random teenager, be it at coaching classes, playground or school toilets, it was the most talked about topic.

There was no Savita bhabhi back then and forget about Youporn. Nearest to sexuality we could get was hearsay from a few privileged friends about ‘Baywatch’, few playboy magazines smuggled out of elder brother’s closet, own fantasy about class teachers and that’s all.

And then it came! Kolkata billboards and walls became flooded with the posters of the front deck of a giant ship and a beautiful couple. Everyone was intrigued to experience the most expensive movie of that time which used a cutting edge technology that was bound to awestruck the viewers. People started going to movie halls and then the words started spreading like wildfire, but for an entirely different reason!!

A sudden bolus dose of sex in Indian plates, and they licked it clean. Chosen few were lucky enough to watch it on big screen and tried to win all battles against those who took resort to the VCRs (those big black cassettes, rented at 10 rupees) on certain aspects of “the bigger, the better” controversy (not going into much depth though :P).

For parents, it was a movie about a big ship sinking, but for us it was the only legitimate way of seeing a naked woman. And then those sleepless nights, those curves, and hills, and crevices, and weird thoughts flowed.

– “Can a woman be so much fair, so flawless?! The director and the blonde hero must be lucky!”
– “What had actually happened inside that car? Can it really be done on the back seat?” Now you know, courtesy the ‘Dancing Cars’ in PK!
– “Aging is a bad thing, look how that pretty face has turned into the old hag!”
“OMG! The heroine is taller than the hero!”
– “Bhai (Bro), to hell with watercolours, let’s start drawing portraits, who knows if it might come handy in future!

Kate and Leonardo, take a bow! You were the Adam and Eve of our Eden of adulthood. Now when we look back, we laugh at our naivety, but then again, it was the first taste that lingered on.

Our dear reader, if you think that we are only dealing with the kinky stuffs then let us enlighten you with some alternate facts.

That Movie was a milestone in many other ways. Ask your parents, what the last Hollywood movie they watched before it. We bet most of them won’t have any answer. A handful will take the name of “Enter the Dragon” or “My Fair Lady”, but for middle class Indians, that movie was a gate pass to the Hollywood.

And it was also the most popular English song among Aam Aadmi (common man). Can’t believe us? Ok, ask your mom to sing an English number, apart from ‘We shall overcome’ of course!

The movie taught us how to kiss a girl boldly, like a MAN. Before that the sole widely known example of on-screen kissing was ‘Bobby’, or was it really a kiss? At least it was better than the overridden camera angle of Pigeons kissing or blossoming flowers. As a whole, the movie taught us love; it taught us courage and worked as a sudden catalyst to increase our mental age with a big leap forward.

To some extent it had an emotional quotient as well, girls used to have tears in their eyes when Jack was turning into an Ice cube.

And to finish it, that famous Bird Pose! Even now, once in a while, we try to become Jack and Rose, yes boss, it’s true, go to the FB page of one of ours. You would know!

 

P.S – You must be thinking why there was no mention of the cinematic excellence of the movie. If you are really into CGI and Puppets, then please excuse us. We don’t do dry stuffs!

 

Author: Anirban Ghosh & Arijit Ganguly

 

Please don’t leave before feeding us back! Yes, feel free to criticize. Your comments will only strengthen us to come back every Saturday with more entertaining articles.

Featured Image Source: wallpapercave.com

29 comments

  • Every time I miss you (your article) I feel you, that’s how I love you..go on… on.. on

    please stay on with your writings. I was bit tensioned and disturbed, your article made me free to fly with my mind. Thanks to both of you.

    A little bit of correction if you may so, the cassette was called VHS tape and the VCP/VCR is the instrument for playing it.

  • This is by far one of the most interesting topics that anari minds has penned in…it reminded me of my childhood memories .I was very much eager to watch hollywood movies when my parents were not present at home..well i dint watch Titanic at globe but I can definitely relate these incidents with mine.

    • Thank you Souparna for visiting our site. Hollywod movies specially attracted the Children of 90s 😛 . They grew up and wrote a blog. Cycle of life! 😀
      Surely we want more. But nowadays it’s very common to get movies like “Titanic”. The “Sunny” Bollywood has also started competing. 😛
      Good for us.

  • Very nicely put up man.. Well done.. will wait for the next article… Kudos.. Keep it up..

  • Arijit and Anirban…nailed it man……Excellent piece of writing…..I also had the same experience.The previous night before going to the Globe, when me and my pisir meye(sorry i get confused between niece and cousin) came to know that the next day we two (one in class VIII and the other in IX….that’s how we used to write in our notebook namesticker) are going to see this movie with my maa and baba…..our faces got pale like a blotting paper….coz by God’s grace I came to know beforehand that “টাইটানিক সিনেমা টায় সিন আছে”…..rest is history….after entering the theatre we both started fighting on the 4th chair farmost as possible from parents, I won!!

    • Truly the “rest is history”! We are literally scratching our heads now to have missed to contact all of you before we penned down this article. It’s very refreshing to know all the unique experiences related to this epic movie. Thanks a lot Chhandak for sharing your story with us! Much appreciated. Please stay in touch. We’ll keep the 4th chair reserved for you in coming days. 🙂

  • long shot ….Bravo,, ” I knew the waiting had begun , and headed straight ..into the shining sun.”
    Fo X & Do G ..Zindabaaadd !!

  • Read the article and must say that it is penned in a great way to remember this epic movie and the ways we managed to watch it during our sensitive adolescent time! I still remember the time when the movie was everywhere in the news and my elder sister discovered that it is going to be aired on our local cable channel, hence my entire family (Mom, Dad, Sis and me) decided to watch it. I still remember the moment when the channel was quickly switched by Mom during the particular 2 scenes of the movie and I so dreaded it…lol! Anyways, Arijit and Anirban, great work and keep coming up with these 🙂

    • Even we learned that channel-switching technique later and applied in emergency situations :P. Thanks Rishin for sharing your experience and motivating us. Please stay connected.

  • Feels like deja- vu!! Had an identical experience with this movie, except that i watched it on tv at home, which kind of makes it worse!!

  • It was same experience for a small town guy like me.. though my first Hollywood movie in theater was jurassic park , sitting on lap of my father, the movie for which I got my own seat in a theater was Titanic. I was not aware of this aspect of the movie, so my parents also. All I knew, it’s about the tragedy of a big ship so sitting between Maa and Baba and watching those scenes really gave me goose bump and I was perplexed whether to keep my eyes open or not. Never thought at that age that a girl can be so shameless! ! Your blog reminds me of my childhood days.

    • Thanks Dr Biplab Deb for sharing your experience. It’s our pleasure to have reminded you of your childhood days. We’ll try to entertain you with more such days in future. Please keep in touch.

  • It was same experience for a small town guy like me.. though my first Hollywood movie in theater was jurassic park , sitting on lap of my father, the movie for which I got my own seat in a theater was Titanic. I was not aware of this aspect of the movie, so my parents also. All I knew, it’s about the tragedy of a big ship sk sitting between Maa and Baba and watching those scenes really gave me goose bump and I was perplexed whether to keep my eyes open or not. Never thought at that age that a girl can be so shameless! ! Your blog reminds me of my childhood days.

  • Bravo Anirban… You again showed us that you are a good… I mean very good writer. I read your blog on indiamike. It was so vivid that I was feeling like I was travelling with you n your group. Coming to this blog… You just scratched the memories of adolescence.. ? and the beauty of picturisation of Hollywood movies..
    You keep writing…. We’ll keep reading.. N of course commenting…

    • Thanks a lot Manish, but for this very article all the credits goes to Arijit, it was his idea, He had written most of it, then we have developed it, we are glad that you have like it, be with us , we will bring something for you every weekends!!

      • Arijit…Bravo as usual with your complete set of silently killing humor…yeah that was the first day I bunked school to watch a cinema and it was 5 minutes late so that nobody can see me…still remember how I was awestruck to find one of my friend at halftime and then simply uncomfortable to hear from him me in plain bangla “eto khon jib diye jol porechey to ebar chokh diye porbey!!!” in presence of so many…

        • Thanks a lot Mousam for sharing your story with us, we are eager to know if that ‘chokh diye jol pora’ part really happened afterwards!!
          Be with us and wait for next Saturday, there will be a new treat for you!

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