A Movie Experience

We went to a movie in Bangalore for the first time on Wed. Jan. 14. This was a holiday here so there was a lot less traffic than usual around. Our friend Linn went too. She has been before, but to different theaters than the one we went to. We decided to see "Australia" and see one of the Indian films another time. This is a relatively new theater with nice seats. The system is quite civilized too. The seats are assigned on your ticket and you can call ahead to reserve seats too. We arrived about 2 hours early to get our tickets and were in the second row, which was fine. They let the people in a little too close to the movie start time so people were still being seated when a message quickly flashed on the screen asking people to stand for the national anthem. One of us saw the message so we knew what was happening and we stood. A film was shown with various people singing the national anthem. We presume it was in Hindi since Hindi and English are the national languages and it wasn't in English. When we sat down again there was a commotion several rows back with an Indian man yelling at some foreigners who apparently did not stand during the anthem. They settled down fairly quickly, but it was clear the man was quite disturbed and he said that Indians stand for Anthems in other countries. The film soon started and the audience was generally quiet, but there were a lot of cell or mobile phones ringing throughout the film. Fortunately, they were not so loud. "Mobiles" are much more common here than in the USA. It seems like almost everyone has one. The infrastructure required for mobile phones seems like it should be much less expensive to build and maintain compared to land lines, so the costs are relatively low compared to the US. The film was good. There is normally an intermission or break or interim in Indian film showings because they are typically longer than US films. This film was about 2.5 hours long, so a break was good. We enjoyed the evening and day off from work and went home.
The avid patriotism shown by the fellow, who was mad at the foreigners for not standing during the anthem, may go along with the anger people are expressing after the Mumbai attacks. The local papers have frequent mention of the attacks and who may be responsible with discussion of what proof exists. It sounds a little like the "drumbeat of war"... getting louder and louder...
It reminds some of us about being in the US in late 2001 and 2002 where there was a continuous noise to go off to war with someone. The "proof" of who that someone should be was mounted and we know what resulted. There is need to be careful. Ziggy and Zoe want to say something now.

This is Zoe and Ziggy. We don't know what our humans are talking about! They are mysterious creatures! Zoe had a bit of a relapse. She coughed up more fur onto the soft things again and went back to see the vegetarian. He thinks it is still related to the fur we keep swallowing and told the humans to brush us more- Ziggy likes that! Zoe doesn't like it much. Meanwhile, all the soft things on the floor are rolled up where we can't sit on them or put our fur balls on them! This is no fun!