A GLITCH

A GLITCH

At a time, when both Hollywood and Bollywood were beaming with incompetence, our own regional movie ‘Kantara” was swiftly winning hearts of both ‘mass’ and ‘class’. People of all ages and cadres were going gaga about this movie. After having watched a row of hideous movies to nurture the film industry, I decided to watch the movie Kantara. The movie was always running houseful and it was difficult to get tickets at the last moment. We decided to watch the movie on Diwali when everyone was free. My in-laws were also very enthusiastic to join us. I decided to take my babysitters also. So it was me, hubby, 3 kids, in laws and 2 babysitters. You might be thinking that I am a kind hearted woman who wanted to show her babysitters a good time with a state–of-art movie watching experience. I am nothing even close to what you thought.

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?Last month, I planned the movie Brahmastra for ‘mommy and kids time’. My eldest son Akki is 12 years old and a mini adult. The toddler twins are 3 years old. They get a limited time with me daily because of my busy practice and were excited to watch the movie with me. They treat me like how women treat the vegetable before buying: squeezing, pinching, tossing and may even chop off my pinky finger like tips of ladies fingers if I am not careful. There is always stiff competition between the twins to show their affection towards mommy. I made them sit on either side of me to facilitate a peaceful movie watching. We all sat with tubs of popcorn, nachos and pepsi. Appu kept asking that he can’t find the cheese dip for nachos. Wearing 3D glasses, I searched for the cheese dip in his tray like a blind person reading Braille and helped him out. Aarohi, after finishing half a tub of popcorn, wanted to feed me popcorn. I thought it was nice to have come with these lovely kids. Appu saw this business of ours and competed to feed me. He started shoving more popcorn in my mouth than Aarohi. She got irritated. I tasted some gooey slimy stuff. Aarohi didn’t want to waste time picking popcorn from the tub. She was feeding me half chewed popcorn from her mouth. Yuck. I said popcorn feeding time is over and they should watch movie now. No one was interested in the movie. Appu had finished his stocks. Aarohi had some popcorn still. They slowly stood up in their seats. They started fighting over the remaining crumbs of popcorn and finally poured the remnant popcorn on my head. I would have dusted the popcorn off my head and watched the movie if my twins had not ended up in the brawl and rolled over the floor fighting. If I had not intervened, the audience would have more action off-screen than on-screen. I thought I had enough of mommy and kids time. They had showered me with enough love and popcorn.

I said, “Ok guys. Party is over”. We walked out before the interval!

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It was that historic day, I decided not to watch any movie without babysitters. To book 9 tickets for 7.30pm on Diwali, I opened bookmyshow app. Oops. In my old phone, my booking details like name, phone number, cinema hall details were all saved. With my new iphone 14, I had to enter the details all over again. So I got started. We don’t have PVR or INOX in Shimoga.?Shimoga is bestowed with a mall and has Bharath cinemas. I was delighted to have selected 9 tickets and proceeded to payment gateway. Some technical problem crept up and I could not book tickets. I refreshed and started all over again. By this time my mind was already daydreaming of me sitting next to my husband and watching the movie! I finally got the e-tickets. I was surprised that it said 7.30am! I checked the movie timings of Bharath cinemas, Shimoga and there was no 7.30 am show. I asked my son Akki who was engrossed in his ipad playing video games.

“If there is no 7.30am show in the Cinema, it’s gotta be a glitch mom”, said Akki .

?Akki is a tech savvy kid and is experienced in online stuff or that’s what I thought. So that was the final verdict. A glitch!

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I shared the tickets in our family group. My husband was very happy. My father-in-law asked if it was 7.30 am show. I told, “Dad, it’s a technical glitch!”

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On the big day, Diwali evening our battalion marched over to the mall. In front of the movie entrance, there was a big poster of Kantara. I wanted to take pictures to post on my social media. My hubby hushed me that we might get late. It is a bad omen to not let your wife take a pic she wants.

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At the cinema entrance, the security guy was having trouble scanning the tickets. Another technical glitch, maybe! They made us stand aside to facilitate other customers. A supervisor came and tried to scan. No luck either. Then he looked closer at the tickets and said, “Mam, these tickets are booked for the 7.30am show, Bharath cinemas, Manipal.”?I felt a cosmic popcorn tub pouring over my head and drowning me. It was no technical glitch. It was my carelessness all along. I had thought there is only one Bharath cinema hall and that’s in Shimoga. It was only later that I came to know, Bharath cinemas are there in Manipal, Kundapur and everywhere else! I asked if we could buy tickets now, which I knew was impossible. He said, “Sorry mam, we are running houseful not only for today but for next 2 days.”?Wow, how exciting! I made a dog face and cursed my techno geek son for his (un)timely advice on ticket booking online, who was giggling at my shameful face.

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I could have avoided this catastrophe if I had entered the booking details attentively. My husband was furious that we embarrassed his parents. As we quietly walked out of the cinema entrance, Appu started protesting that he wanted to watch the movie. As my husband tried to grab him, I vacantly stared at the poster of the movie where we did not take the picture!

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Lesson learnt: Enter online transaction details carefully in a sober mind to avoid humiliating circumstances!?