The forgotten beauty of Video Rental Stores and Movie Nights

Musings

It's Thursday night in Al Satwa, Dubai and you don't want to do anything better than curling up on your setee with a BluRay disc playing the movie that came out two years ago, alongside a bowl of crisps and some cold orange juice to wash it down with. Thursday night signaled the start to the weekend.  

How simpler were those days? You either caught the hottest movies at the theater during their run time or just sat patiently, waiting for it's disc to hit the neighborhood video store.

It was pure ecstasy to catch a Mohanlal movie sitting there on the shelf, just waiting to be picked up.

At this point, I’d like to recount an incident from 2006–2007, when renting a CD happened once in a blue moon. It was a cool weekend night, and we were all cooped up in front of the TV to watch whichever movie Acha had brought home. Mind you, it was an unofficial CD, with just the movie’s name written in blue marker pen.

**Drumrolls please** we ended up watching Thanmathra that night 

That's the beauty of it. With internet being a scarce commodity for our family back then, you would seek others' opinion on the movie, preferably at least 5 reviews (and that's if they have watched the movie). Acha and amma weren't film buffs and would be all ears if was a Mohanlal movie, picking it without looking at the movie's plot, and call it an occasional avenue for entertainment.

Video Rental Stores - The Ritual and Checklist

Hindustani Music? SP Balasubramanyam's hits? Metal music or the movie that you missed watching at the theaters three years ago, you had it all at the local video store - namely Rafa Video, Deira and Al Mansoor, Hamriya.

Visiting the store was a ritual in itself and we had a few checklists to clear for this:

• No movies with adult content
• Everyone should be free and make themselves available at home for watching the movie
• The CD should'nt cost more than 2 dirhams for rental per day, or if it's available for sale outright, not more than 10 dirhams
• Mohanlal movies were provided top priority - which meant we ended up watching some crap films like Rock 'n Roll and Alexander the Great back then. Angel John and Chandrolsavam later turned out to be entertaining attempts for me, at a time when I couldn't comprehend what Chirrakal Sreehari was talking about.

Browsing the racks would be hardest, whilst knowing that the shopkeeper only stocks Malayalam movies on 3 rows. Trying ever so hard to find something that skipped people's attention, something stacked so far away from eyesight, taking the CD from within it's cover to check if there has been a mistaken placement. Oh, those moments!

We also bought cassettes from these shops - namely Al Rafa and Mansoor Videos, and it seems we often purchased tape collections like Hits of Yesudas or Hits of M.G. Sreekumar, rather than movie-specific soundtracks. It was a throwback to the soundtracks that used to make us go 'wow' during a bygone era

I have vivid memories of being strapped into the backseat of our old Camry car, while being driven to places such as church, relatives' homes and other places, with hit tracks like "Manimizhi Poovu", "Kando Kando" from Mahasamudram, "Kadukittu Varuthoru" from Hallo and "Muttathe Mulle Chollu" from Mayavi playing over the speakers.

The old but faded stereo system, in all it's glory!

Re-routing back to our topic, the CD would be picked up after much consultation and deliberation, since the outcome of the pick being a good one or a downright bad one would weigh heavily on our minds before we made our next visit to the store.

As a kid, let's be honest - the story didn't matter. Just the frames and understandable comedy bits that were strewn around like bread crumbs for us needy children to enjoy!

Later, when East Coast and Saina started distributing pocket-sized CD's and made them available in department stores like Lulu, it started becoming a regular in our shopping cart.

It eventually became a thing of the past.

Just like that, we never knew that we were making memories with each movie night. Each accidental CD pick, each comedy scene, every squirm during an intimate scene, and each visit to the video store quietly weaving itself into our story.

Amen's CD