Its been a lot of times we come across situations like planning for a day out and one of the friends or family member jumps in saying.. Hey, which movie in “ASHOKA” ?

Same happened with me even. Me with my friends were planning something to do for the weekend and ended up for watching a movie but bad luck goes hand in hand with the future managers as while doing MBA we don’t get movie tickets because of HOUSE FULL n after MBA good companies as for IIM’s made them full.

So finally we got tickets for Monday. As we have booked them on Saturday itself. Headed towards Ashoka cinema for which I never thought I would be visiting it in my life for it’s a way far related to newly released flicks.

Though Ashoka was the only one cinema hall Udaipur had in mid twenties. It was built in 1958-59 by the Popular Sanghi Group who have been Pioneers and Sole Exhibitors of Cinema Trade in 1941 in the State of Mewar.

After 50 years, Ashoka has been renovated and made into a “First Single Screen Cineplex in UDAIPUR”. The last viewed flick was Vivah before the modernisation and Tashan as it got renovated in 2008. Till today Ashoka is the one and only Cineplex to be a centre for entertainment in eyes of people of Udaipur.

As with the renovation of infrastructure, many things also got renovated. The parking rates from Rs. 5 and 20 got raised to Rs. 20 and 50 for two wheelers and four wheelers respectively. A premium parking is also available at Rs. 100 for four wheeler owners.

The ticket rates have raised like one would be thinking that,

“Would i be getting any return gifts for watching a movie at Ashoka.”

Their present slab is : Rs.60, Rs. 90, Rs. 120, Rs. 150, Rs.  300.

These may vary time to time and day to day.

Compared to the old Ashoka, where a person with 100 bucks with his wife would have viewed the movie and saved Rs. 10 to his pocket including the parking charges. But now the time has changed and so have the spending habits and living standards of Udaipurites, which was very well researched and analysed by the Sanghi group as today they are the only Cineplex in town for more than couple of years by now .

Nevertheless, i parked my car and my friend got the tickets. He didn’t wait in the queue for long as we had already booked through www.bookmyshow.com as telephone lines were continuously busy. We stepped in for the hall and the aunty on the glass door checked our tickets but there was no one to check us. Well least bothered with that we had something which was bigger than that, 2 guys sitting on our reserved seats and they were not ready to leave as according to them they have already been troubled from Ashoka’s staff and been shifted twice earlier.

Now, talking about Dabangg

• Genre: Action
• Starring: Salman Khan, Arbaaz Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Sonu Sood, Mahie Gill, Vinod Khanna,Dimple Kapadia, Om Puri,Anupam Kher, Mahesh Manjrekar
• Director: Abhinav Kashyap
• Producer: Arbaaz Khan
• Writer: Dilip Shukla, Abhinav Kashyap
• Music Director: Sajid-Wajid
• Distributor: Arbaaz Khan Productions, Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision
• Release Date: September 10, 2010

We sat to our comfortable seats and eagerly waited for Robinhood Chulbul Pandey (Salman khan). All thanks to crowd of Udaipur, because wherever we go we would be the same always. i.e as sallu was on screen..nobody remembered his dialogues at that time because audience was busy shouting, whistling, clapping for his welcome.

A guy in last 2^nd row on my extreme left shouted tera hi jalwa so loud that whole audience was attracted to him. I just gave a thought that what would happen to them if sallu baba comes out of screen standing LIVE before them.

But an awesome flick by Abhinav Kashyap that i merely heard a complete silence in the hall as every time i saw the gentry rolling on floor laughing.

I won’t be spoiling the curry by writting the whole story but the movie is very well directed, set in Uttar Pradesh (Lal ganj) with a story of corrupt police Dabang, played by Salman Khan and overcomes the shortcomings and highlights the flaws and loopholes in the system with a wonderful family drama in the end.

Comedy is very much kind of Salman’s copyrights and Action had its origin from South Indian films.

Dialogues I liked the most were:

“Thapad se darr nai lagta sahab, pyaar se lagta hai.”

“Humara naam humaari personality ko suit karta hai, “Chulbul Pandey””

The music already made a good way of promotion as it was seen when the song munni badnam hui started and the mob in front seats was dancing as attending a baraat.

A pure fundu, time pass and paisa wasool movie according to many people I heard talking after the movie.

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s Tere mast mast do nain created a very lively ambience in the hall. Not to leave behind the total tapori dance of sallu in title track of Dabang was making me to stand n copy him.

The movie is a hit on Udaipur’s box office as per the previous house full shows and reviews. However, I wanted to have some more views so i jumped to some Udaipurites.

Sonal [Pursuing MBA from FMS Udaipur] says : a very good movie.. Salman danced really good.. sonakshi is so so sweeeet.

Divyani: [Pursuing B.Com. from B.N Girls College] says : the dialogues were very good and way Salman used them made them better..

Amrit: [10^th std. student from St. Gregorios Sr. Sec. School] says : I enjoyed like hell today and i want to watch it again.. Salman khan rocks.. !!

Photograph Courtsey: http://ashokacinema.com