This picture and that – [ article by mmr ]

         A clash between the personnel of a Theater and some people who went to see the Diwali release of a film at Coimbatore took its toll– on date one has died. 

There are and would be several versions – that the deceased did not have enough money to pay for the tickets, that there was a quarrel over the theatre allowing tickets to be sold in black market, that the deceased had questioned the theater personnel at the counter regarding exorbitant collection of money over and above the one stipulated in the tickets, etc,.  

          Already the District Collector of Coimbatore had initiated action against cinema halls collecting exorbitant fees.  The justification on the other side is that due to CD piracy, they are not able make both ends meet.  So naturally no questions would be tolerated, that too with a surging crowd and on the first day of the release of the film.

If any one feels that the real truth will be out at the end of the investigations, it would mean that he does not know the abc of corruption and the might of these theater houses.

This author himself was at the receiving end of the theater personnel running rough shod over the customers:

It was at a theater at Hosur and somewhere around 1992-93.  He had gone with his friends to view a film.  After obtaining the tickets when they all went into the theater, there were no seats available.  There was no reservation and hence it was on a first-come-first-served-baisis.  So when inside the hall there were no seats, the ticket boy at the entrance had to be approached.  He said the family of some ‘big’ Police personnel had suddenly come and hence seats became unavailable.  For us he said some folding chairs would be made available.  Not being interested to sit for 3 hours in folding chairs, the friends of this author went to enquire whether refund would be available.  At that time this author asked the ticket boy whether there was no stipulation as to the number of tickets that could be sold.  A slap on the face was the answer.  The friends came back hearing the sound of the slap.  They were furious.  All of them came out of the theater without even getting a refund.  They initially thought that these tickets would be an evidence for a complaint before the Police.  But on second thoughts, the idea was given up.  There was no witness in respect of the assault and when the entire episode revolved around a benefit extended by the theater wallahs to Police Officials family, what would come out of a complaint in the case?

In the same month a Tamil magazine ‘Thuglaq’ also reported of an assault by some Theater wallahs at Chennai.

It is not a secret that mafias run theater houses, petrol pumps, etc because without muscle power these establishments cannot be run.

Now, coming to the link…

These theater people also will say: it is a free market, if you want you come to see the film at the fee fixed by us, or you have the liberty not to come at all - we charge for the ‘facility’ provided by us - you have no right to quarrel or dictate to us.

Does this vein of argument sound similar…to that which is put out by private schools?  

‘Oh, what an uncharitable comparison against charitable educational institutions!’, will be the immediate reaction.  But see what the C&AG has got to say in Para 3.5.1 of the Audit Report on  Revenue Receipts of Tamil Nadu for the year ended 31 March 2010:  ‘Private educational institutions in Tamil Nadu have encroached Government lands to the extent of 170.38.8 hectares.’  This is in Tamil Nadu alone.  In respect of other states, it has to be exhaustively studied. But the CAG Report only once again leads us to the view that all Trusts should be brought under the Purview of the Right To Information Act, because all of them are handling public money. 

The Tamil Nadu Government legislated on the fees to be collected by Private Schools.  But the general feeling is that the enactment has become another piece of legislation operated by money power.  Otherwise a group of schools already collecting hefty fees, would not have been able to get away with a near 300% hike over what was fixed by the very same committee, but headed by a different Judge. 

As if that infliction is not enough, the schools invent and re-invent methods in a ‘smart’ way for levying fees in different names, for different purposes.  Complicating the most elementary thing like education and its commercialization defies the Fundamental Right under the Constitution: ‘free and compulsory education until the age of 14’.  

Now, does the picture of the theater in the state and that of the private schools look any different?

It is an irony that theatrics have come to rule a state claiming a ‘rationalistic heritage in politics’.