Back when he was a student at Delhi's Hindu College, like everyone else, entrepreneur Ajay Bijli would frequent the Capital's theatres like Archana and Sheela. The first thing that would strike him, he told me (during an interview) once, was the incredible gap between what he saw on screen — larger than life images, stunning-looking heroes and heroines, the colourful environment they inhabited — and the dank life of the theatre you were in, to gawk at this scenic world from.

I know what he means. As would you — if you watched movies in cinema halls/talkies in the '90s. They were supposed to be slumming experiences, what with torn seats with zero recline, stinky loos, negligible leg-space, shitty flooring, etc. But what choice did we have? And besides, what did we pay to deserve any better anyway?