The lungi lovers

The other day, a theatre in Chennai was running along, like it had for the last thirty years

The lungi lovers

The other day, a theatre in Chennai was running along, like it had for the last thirty years. The frontbenchers were coming in droves to whistle at their favourite actress. The backbenchers were guffing their popcorn and checking out the Dhanush's latest moves. And the balcony types were their usual critical selves on every tiny flaw of every new movie.

The only gnat on the horizon, where the theatre's management was concerned, was the gleaming new chrome and glass multiplex coming up down the road.

And then some bright spark (the owner's son just back from Wharton and setting up new management processes at the theatre?) decided to put up a poster banning lungis inside the cinema hall.

A little piece of paper proclaiming the order which was like telling a Punjabi gudda that he had to live without bhangra and paranthe. Or informing a Bangalorean techie that the draught beer had suddenly all dried up. It was like forbidding a Malleswaram ajji from evening chow chow bhath. Or ordering a Delhiwalla to stop carrying a gun and shooting people on a whim.

For once the lines between the Karunanidhi supporters and the Jaya devotees were blurred. Fan clubs of Rajini joined hands with fan clubs of Kamal, who raised cudgels with Trisha Tweeters and Surya Suckers, who pulled in the Cine Association of T Nagar (West Wing) and the Anna Nagar Water Tank Junior Artistes Company.

How could anyone who had ever whistled on the First Day First Show or watched Kaadal Desam thirty six times, and threw coins every time Rajini Saar appeared on screen in Padeyappa, not hitched up his lungi to follow the dance moves in any release?

The tremors were felt in Kodambakkam, Kollywood's studio-floor shallow heart. Suddenly directors, lolling in their director chairs were hitching up their checked, airy garments and changing their lead actors' costumes from leather pants to lungis. (So what if the story went for a toss? One could always add a bathing scene in, or a passionate song shot in the Alps, to provide logic for the outfit switch.)

Processions of auto drivers with their hirsute moustaches and fishermen armed with only their lungis, marched as one to the theatre. (Rumours go on to suggest that the normally aggro Chennai auto rajas actually drove anyone who joined the Lungi Cause for free but this has not been substantiated.)

The result was, that the poster was hastily taken down, the son packed back to the family estates in Gangaikondacholapuram. And many dhoti-clad Damodaran types are now resting easy on their 37-D seats.

Sundal, anyone?