Normal morning routine including breakfast buffet at Seasonal Tastes at the Westin. Busy morning of knowledge transfer with Anshul followed by a trip to Cafe Arabia in a nearby mall for some delicious chicken rolls (chicken, lettuce, mayo-like substance in a flat bread) followed by a scoop of coffee icecream at Baskins & Robbins, yummy! Back at work did more knowledge transfer and my presentation on performance techniques. I thought that it went far better than Monday’s — amazing what actually preparing can do!
At 6:15p I left with Anshul and his wife Pallavi to eat at JT’s Brew Works at Amanora mall. We had mostly appetizers — chicken bits, pizza, etc. Quite good. We walked to the theater to watch the latest Quentin Tarantino film, _Hateful Eight_. Anshul and I are both big fans of his work.
Sometimes it is the little things that surprise you when travelling. Seeing a movie in India was definitely one of those things. First off, the cost — 150 INR (so about $2.50) for the nicest seats I’ve ever seen in a theater — lazy boy recliners with electricly operated foot rests and a small table in front for drinks and food).
Next, prior to the movie there were not trailers. There were also no ads, just public service messages in Hindi or Marathi — I couldn’t tell — the majority of them anti-smoking. Their slogan is pretty blunt: “SMOKING KILLS”. Even their cigarette packs display those two words along with the picture of a black lung. India seems to take smoking very seriously — in fact it was banned indoors everywhere we went, something that greatly surprised me.
Another thing that was interesting to me was that the national anthem of India plays before the movie and everyone is asked to stand, hands to sides, while it plays. Anshul assured me that was in-theater only, not when it shows on TV or Netflix or the like.
Also, for this movie at least, no subtitles — just the English audio track. The patrons had no trouble following it, however, even with some of the more Southern and Mexican accents that were in the movie.
Incredibly, everytime someone on screen is smoking — whether it is a cigarette, a pipe, or what-have-you — the words “SMOKING KILLS” appear in big letters on the lower right of the screen for the entire duration the tobacco product is on screen.
A great thing about Indian movies is that, no matter the length, they have an intermission (or “interval”, as they call it)! As a younger man this may have incensed me but as an older man I appreciated the opportunity to walk around and go to the restroom. It also gave us the opportunity to buy some food (they have popcorn, pastries, candies, icecream, etc.). I had some butter pecan icecream, my second favorite flavor.
One last thing — the government censors the movies. Excessively gory scenes (of which QT is known for) are removed and some words are muted — I couldn’t quite get which ones, however, there didn’t seem to be a real pattern and the F-bombs definitely were a-OK.
The movie itself was very good. They dropped me off at the hotel where I almost immediately turned in for the night as it was 11p and I was exhausted.