My First Theatrical Experience!!! Bangalore Days in Laksmi Theatre

Dear Readers,

Lakshmi Theatre of KL51, Ottapalam closed today.

It was the heart of this town.

I don't know what it is that you feel on this rain at May 30th. My home is a place called 'Ottapalam' right now. Ottapalam, the KL51 as we kids call it. I heard that the Lakshmi Theatre, heart of Ottapalam is stopping shows today. It's...not going to be there, huh?

Eleven years ago in 2014, Bangalore Days released this day.

Directed by the amazing Anjali Menon starring mollywood's best actors Fahad Fazil AKA FaFa, Dulquer Salman AKA DQ, Nazriya and Nivin Pauly, the film is a milestone in the history of Malayalam cinema.

I was then at Saudi Arabia. I came home for my summer vacation in June- the monsoon season here. My uncle, aunts, cousins took me along with them to watch THE Bangalore Days.

I was a four year old. I had never been to a theater. I'm glad that I was four. Because I remember that day more than anything. The rain was heavy. Someone picked me and ran to the car. I waved goodbye to my mom- so excited that I'm going to a theater and also without her. I may have felt like a big kid who's being away from her mother.

I remember awing at the Lakshmi goddess at the center of the theater who was unbothered by the heavy rain. Me and my cousin Ameen were one year apart in age. He was five. They took one ticket for the both of us. I obviously became furious! The lights wen out and I told the entire theater 'Current poyi!/power is out! My family still laughs over it.

That's how I watched Bangalore Days, sitting on the lap of my beautiful aunt (@raihan) whom I saw as my sister as she were just ten years older than me. I was shifting seats with my cousins in between. Little did I know what the word 'cousins' meant. I used to fight with them back then. I didn’t even know the movie was about cousins.

Now typing these words as I hear them talk downstairs, my heart is going a bit heavy. I feel that movie right now. My love for it will only grow as I grow up and understand better. Bangalore Days was my first theater experience, and I got to watch it with my troop! Even when we had not the slightest idea of it.
And Lakshmi Theater was the heart of it.

My family doesn't take me to the movies a lot, even though it's the one place I love going at any time. I don't remember the last time I went to Lakshmi. Lakshmi Theatre was one thing I saw every day when I returned from school. All citizens of KL51 have heart-racing memories with Lakshmi Theater.
Over a decade of Bangalore Days and over seven decades of Lakshmi Theater.

Lakshmi stopped running shows today. But it’ll never stop running the Bangalore Days in front of my eyes.

It’s a core memory.

Good day. Your author, 

SeñoRida