in college days movies were my passion and prasad talkies was my favourite destination. manager mr taufiq ahmed khan was friend of babu ji and one cousin of mine served there as part timer. this is how everyone in the staff was known to me. those were days when i use to take seven or eight friends with me to watch movie and sometime the gatekeeper had to find out the reason as to why many of ticket holder were roaming without a seat. good old days of cinema when film use to run for many weeks and posters of siver or golden jubilee appeared on the walls of public buildings. projection room was a place from where i have watched the movies, in case theatre was house full.
recently during my visit to shimla i went to shahi cinema which belongs to sahil's family, one of my collagues. sahil told me about the renovation and how he got new digital projector and more comfortable chairs for his theatre. new projector caught my attention and i visited the projection room. two old machine are still standing there, with a chimney imbedded in the roof. the projection opertor shiv dutta has the experience of working for more than 42 years. he still rewinds 35 mm film on spools which are used in old projectors but these are advertisement films. for movies they have a small air conditioned cabin, one computer and a projector as small as a suitcase. dish hanging outside enables him to download the film to the computer and that's all. no more heat of carbon rods, no smoke even that vigilitant attendance is also not required. shiv dutta, whose father pandit baij nath was also an projector operator, has worked in krishna theatre, jyoti and friends theatre since 1966. he is in shimla since 1989. he says the digital picture quality is much much better than 35 mm and it makes him no difference at which machine he is working. but when he touches old machine, love reflects on his face.
