All the way back from viewing Chhello Show, Pan Nalin’s exquisite paean to single-screen theatres, I was flooded with thoughts. Of the weekly pleasures afforded by at least half a dozen standalone movie halls. Nicely within walking distance of my Hill Road home in Bandra.     
  
New Talkies was most regularly frequented, not simply for being the closest, but because it fed a steady diet of both Hindi and English films. Western films were what we otherwise mainly headed southside for, thrilling to The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, the original Doctor Dolittle and Fantasia, the visionary Disney animated classical music anthology.

Those rates proved pricier than New Talkies’ Rs 3.30 Balcony and Rs 2.20 Stalls seats. Earlier generations enjoyed—for 1 princely rupee—a 75 paise ticket, 10 paise cycle parking charge, 10 paise interval batata vada and 5 paise Panama cigarette puffs.