Tales out of school - 1

Reason for this post: I have been in reminiscing mode.

Of all the seats in all the theaters in the world...

Once, when we were in undergrad, four of us decided to go for a movie on a sudden impulse. We had heard that the movie Love ke liye kuch bhi karega was decent time pass. So on it was to the movie theater.

At the theater ticket counter, we learnt that the movie had started some 15 minutes ago. Ah, a masala Hindi movie - most probably nothing worth not missing would have happened in the first fifteen minutes. So, undeterred, we bought tickets anyway.

After being in the blazing hot Chennai afternoon sun, we were practically blind when we walked into the darkened theatre. Groping our way from the aisle, we walked down a row. M was leading the way and I was following her close behind. A and V followed. We filed past the occupied seats.

M finally reached an empty seat and was about to lower herself into it. Which was when my slowly returning eyesight saw to my horror that the seat was already occupied. M was getting ready to sit and the guy already on the seat was gaping in soundless open-mouthed disbelief at the prospect of his lap suddenly having an uninvited guest on it.

At the last moment I grabbed M's hand and hissed that the seat was already taken and that we should move on. Finally, we four safely found ourselves unoccupied seats. Of course, we giggled quite a bit after that at the remembrance of the averted disaster.

When the lights came on during the interval, we dissolved into uncontrollable laughter again. You see, the only rows of seats in the entire theater which had occupants in it were the rows we were seated in and the row behind it. Among those hundreds of empty seats, M had chosen a rare occupied seat to sit on. No wonder that poor guy couldn't believe his misfortune!