I have been maintaining and writing my blogs on my personal website https://www.askenni.com since the year 2004 – that is 20 years since. And after the advent of LinkedIn (in 2003), Facebook (in 2004), YouTube (in 2005), Twitter (in 2006), Instagram (in 2010) and Threads (in 2023) – I have been posting or sharing content on these social media platforms quite religiously. But then a couple of miracles happened in the last 7 days; I got some 1000 likes, and 300 trolls for a shitty comment I posted on Instagram about an ‘idiotic’ Indian movie ‘Kalki’. And for a photo I posted on ‘threads’ I got some 25,000 views! This has never happened in my entire life so far for any of my presumably ‘intelligent’ content or ads or mundane predictions I have done since the last 20 years!! I was like – what the fuck??
I was travelling through Tamil Nadu and just near the hotel I stayed at, I spotted a vintage stand alone theatre that was showing the movie ‘Kalki’- in Tamil. It is almost 30 years since I graced a small stand alone theatre and hence to revive my memories and to show my 5-year-old son how it actually felt to watch a movie in our times, I booked the tickets. Otherwise, I have stopped wasting my time and money on watching Indian movies, even if the newspapers rate them 4/5 or any YouTuber raves about it.
The theatre had a capacity of 500 people but only 5 people had come to watch the movie, and out of that 2 people dozed off before the interval.
The culture of a stand alone theatre was completely different in our times from that of the modern movie theatres that exist today. They would always smell of semen, sweat, gutkha, betel leaves, bidis and cigarettes, they wouldn’t switch on the A/Cs or fans where people haven’t occupied the seats, post interval they would switch off all the fans and A/Cs and keep the doors open to save on electricity during nights shows, they wouldn’t clean the hall after each show – you might stamp on ice cream cones, popcorns, potatoes from samosas, and human spit, and few speakers would have been broken giving out screeching audio. The chair cushions used to be torn, the chair handles were broken, few chairs would not slide back, and few chairs won’t slide front.
In spite of all these challenges and exploitations those days, Indians who faced an immense dearth of entertainment in their lives, stood in long queues, got beaten up by the police, suffocated themselves – just to watch their matinee idols on the silver screen. The pathetic situation of the stand alone theatre was 100% matched this time as well, except for people queuing up for the tickets.
Mosquitoes sucked my blood in litres, and bugs bit my wife. My son kept watching without understanding the movie much, and we were waiting for him to doze off to escape the ‘shitty’ movie we had paid for. He dozed off only 5 minutes prior to the climax and we had no escape but to endure the torture!!
I posted my 2-line review about the movie on my social media accounts and commented on one of the Instagram posts as displayed in the image showcased – and the hell broke loose!!
Of course I got 1000 likes, but the other 300 trolls were horrible and nightmarish!!
Here are a few top of the mind comments that were posted, and what I thought I should be answering to them –
Comment 1
“You Tamils hate Telugu movies”
My Reply –
Telugu movie? I never spent my hard earned money on the tickets for a Telugu movie, I watched the Tamil version of Kalki. If it were a Telugu movie, I would have never entered the theatre not because I hate Telugu, but for the simple reason that I don’t understand Telugu.
Comment 2
“Go watch your stupid Vijay movies”
My Reply –
Who said I watch Vijay’s movies? The last movie I watched of Vijay in a theatre was ‘Gilli’ and that was in the year 2004, which apparently was a remake of the Telugu film ‘Okkadu’. Later I took advice from a wise man who said – never watch Vijay’s movies in a movie theatre. I follow that rule, but incidentally and accidentally I happened to watch ‘Sarkar’ in a theatre – and that’s about it.
Comment 3
“You DMK guys go and vote for DMK”
My Reply –
Huh! What is the connection? I said ‘Kalki’ is a sick idiotic movie, which I would state even if you point a gun at my temple, and someone wants me to vote for the DMK? Why? God please have mercy on them.
Comment 4
“You cannot make a statement just like that. You have to give me a reason.”
My Reply –
Holy fuck! What kind of humans copulated to deliver these kind of assholes?? Well, I told him if a woman is beautiful we could find 100 reasons, but if a woman is ugly – what kind of reason do you expect?
And the remaining 290 comments were more or less remarking me as “Sambar” – ‘sambar is jealous, sambar is burning to ashes, sambar this, sambar that..…’ Only after reading those comments did I come to know at the age of 50 that the derogatory remark for a Tamil in Andhra Pradesh is ‘Sambar.’ Cool I guess.
I encountered many similar retards when I started my blog site in the year 2004, and those days my comments section were open for people to leave their opinions. After a few not-so-good episodes with lower souls, I closed them in the year 2006 to avoid wasting my time or keeping my toilet open for others to shit. But social media isn’t a private toilet – it is a public toilet and anyone and everyone can shit in anyone’s toilet, until and unless you kick them out by blocking them one by one. I do block many every single day and avoid accepting requests from a few after reading their social media posts and shares as it is very important for me to maintain sanity, when life becomes a number game.
A wise man once said – life indeed can be hell if you don’t exist amongst ‘few’ like minded people; and if you cannot find them, just hang around alone!
I am indeed glad in a way that I deal with very few elite clients instead of dealing with 1000s of idiots. God bless me.