Doff goes to Yoga every Thursday evening. It’s run by a lovely group of Asians at one of their community centres.
Last week she came home bearing free tickets for a film, as I sat untying the knots in her legs she explained that it was a bit of a cult film in India and they were having a private viewing at the centre on Saturday evening, would I like to go?
Sure I said, I hadn’t really heard much of what she’d said, I didn’t need to, I’d heard my favourite word “FREE” so I knew I’d like it.
We toddled along at the appointed hour and chose a couple of seats in the middle of the room. Everyone was very welcoming and I have to say pleased yet slightly puzzled to see us.
Very soon the film was cranked into action and then just as quickly stopped when somebody shouted out something in Hindi. Everybody turned and looked at us, the only two faces surrounded by 60 Asians.
The lights came back on and one of the elders gently approached and asked how good our grasp of their language was.
I had to sadly confess that I have always learnt my languages in alphabetical order and had only just started Greek. They then offered to run the film with the English subtitles on especialy for us, which; as that cut off the bottom third of the screen wouldn’t be a nuisance at all. We thanked them and felt the biggest pair of inconsiderate, awkward sods ever.
The film must have been running for as long as about three minutes when we both realised that it was a period drama set in the times of The British Colonial Rule of India (The Raj). It accurately told the true tale of how we (The Brits) exploited the impoverished villagers and despite years of drought and starvation still insisted that they pay a high percentage of their harvest as a tax to pay for the upkeep of our army in their country.
The beautiful and generous Indian natives slaved day and night to try and keep body and soul together only interrupted by spontaneously bursting into song and dance every 20 minutes whilst the ugly snarling upper classed twits in the encampment went out on hunting raids blasting the local big eyed furry critters to smithereens or constantly played cricket.
Doff and I looked at each other through the corners of our eyes and muttered …..
“Oh my gawd!”
We slowly slumped into our seats.
Two extracts from the film that went down particularly well with the audience were ……..
“We must send the evil white devils back to the West…” and “The selfish English thieves will steal the food from our babies mouths…”
Lots of cheering for those two, and the one that got a lot of them on their feet was when Captain Ponsonby Fortescue Wetfart kicked the servant who was polishing his footwear in the teeth and screaming at the top of his voice gently advised him that…..
“The darkies will feel the humilation of being trampled into the dirt by our riding boots!”
Which was nice.
From my position near the floor I had spotted a table with a cloth covering which went nearly to the floor. I whispered to Doff that as soon as the film ended we should scuttle under it and wait for everyone to depart before venturing out. She agreed.
However, suddenly the film ended and the lights went up.
Our guests swooped on us from every side and interrogated us as to what we thought of the film.
We said it was lovely and so colourful but had seemed to end suddenly without a conclusion, however it had been fun and we really needed to be getting home now as our curtains needed painting. They were having none of this and told us that this was only an intermission as it was actually a three hour film.
We were their guests and now they would feed us.
Four different families returned and piled our laps up with various plates of popcorn, Bombay mix and Bourbon biscuits. I made the mistake of emptying one of my plates which was immediately replaced by two more, the Bombay Mix was gaining on me.
My trying to balance all these plates and several plastic cups of squash was suddenly hindered by the lights going out and the remaining hour and a half of “How the Brits screwed up our Grandparents” was cheerfully loosened on us.
The story progressed with the upper class sons of Harrow and Eton treating the Indian villagers with disdain and condemning their chance to survive to the mere outcome of a cricket game.
The starving yet plucky Indians facing disaster and hunger did the only logical thing open to them; they sang and danced their way to destiny.
Our guests joined in with them which luckily deprived us of sight of the screen and consequent vision of the arseholes we are descended from.
The film ended with a crescendo of cheering as the villagers beat The English at cricket and won the right not to pay their tax for three years. The Army in turn were booted out and had to go and defend a dust pit in Africa or something.
The lights came up and everybody was in high dudgeon. I went round the room, shook everybody’s hand and apologised profusely for my fellow Englishmen’s behaviour in their country and assured them that I was not personally related to any of them, as all my family were descended from abusers of small hairy mammals.
Doff and I then invited them all to come out into the car park and give us both a bloody good kicking. Unfortunately they declined as I for one would have felt better if they had of done, instead they filled our pockets with popcorn and biscuits and promised to invite us to the next one they show ………. GULP!
