HE is one of his kind in Mumbai today. Raja Picturewala, 38 years old, recycles celluloid waste in his 100 square feet tenement in a northern Mumbai suburb, and uses it to run his cottage-industry Baby Show--clips, reels and sometimes complete runs of Hindi feature films--for an enthusiastic audience that gathers regularly in the tiny windowless room where a 20-year-old projector on a mezzanine beams fanciful images on a whitewashed screen.
The fantasy comes cheap. A 20 paise ticket entitles a person to watch a single reel of about 10 minutes on the screen. To see Amitabh Bachchan hammer away at goons all the way to startling Hollywood success in Don . Or participate in the sheer horror of Khoon Mahal . As one reel gets over, an attendant collects tickets for the next one. In the mohulla where family incomes rarely go beyond a few thousands, each person buys at least Rs 3 worth of tickets. Raja has, at any given time, close to 30 films on hand, most of them being 12 to 15 years old. Shows run right from 9 am to 11 pm. The reels of films are shown at random, depending on viewer response. Only the Sunday film is announced a day before.
"To build a life out of scrap hasn't been easy," says Raja who has been scavenging the best of the trash for the past 25 years. His "good contacts" in the film industry seem to have paid off. He buys waste stock for Rs 1.50 a kilo, sometimes lesser. After collecting the scrap, Raja cuts and pastes the varying lengths of film into a sequence that is a close approximation of the original film. A particular song sequence might be missing, or a fight scene might be clipped when the baddies are winning. Often the sound and visual do not synchronise. Or the film is slightly damaged. But the audience doesn't mind. "Nothing detracts from the pleasure of screen-gazing," declares Kaja.
Though he is the only one practising it today, Raja's trade dates back to the prevideo, pre-cable TV days. Melas at various nooks of Mumbai city had picturewallahs giving excited kids a quick peek at Hindi films in makeshift tents. Rates of stocks too were much higher. A kilo of stock was worth Rs 15 to Rs 25. Full reels of hit movies cost more, depending on their source, the condition of the film and the mood of the day.
Getting into this closely-guarded business was not easy. Friends and relations in the business dissuaded Raja. Accessing producers and distributors was even more difficult. Raja vividly recollects waiting outside the Mahim godown of film distributors to lay his hands on some reels. His lucky break came when he landed up with two trailers of '70s hit films Charas . He sold them off immediately for a handsome profit And hasn't looked back since then.
Today, a confident Raja recounts the history of Mumbai cinema in the last 25 years, and draws parallels from his own life, with ease. In the earlier years, the Sholay era as he describes it, his life wasn't much different from that of the heroes of the silver screen. He would set out in the morning, spend a couple of hours at his regular studio haunts, making rare departures from a sacrosanct itinerary. He would buy stock and sell it, all the while letting his "theatre" out on rent.
But as picturewallahs took to other businesses, this micro-mini Mogul too had to search for other alternatives. After an unsuccessful attempt at full-fledged film distributorship, Raja chose to stick to running his own theatre.
Though life has never quite touched the same high, Raja is satisfied. Less has become more as his worldly needs have become minimal today. Despite the last 10 years being mostly downhill, Raja hasn't raised the price of his ticket. "I'm probably providing the cheapest entertainment in the world," he says. His show was meant for entertaining children (hence the name Baby Show), and therefore it has to stay cheap.
For one who has himself watched very few Films and who trusts the film industry lesser than the Devil, Raja has few misgivings. As far as he is concerned, he recycles waste into celluloid dreams. Dreams that don't cost the earth.
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