He was fallen on the ground with a sudden slap which was so hard that he couldn’t keep his eyes open to see who has hit him. It was so hard that he couldn’t stand on his feet. After few moments when he was able to gather strength, he looked up, rubbing his cheeks in utter dismay. He saw his other two siblings, who were still startled, looking into each other’s eyes with a tinge of fear. They all were shaking. He could see them, he returns to the shadow that has thrown him on the ground, he could see his father standing there, angry and furious over the thing that was going into the room.

For him it was nothing new, he has seen it and went through many a times. He has a love hate relationship with his father for crossing his creative domain, whenever he tried to experiment something illogical in his father’s eyes.

He was passionate about movies; his days and nights passed thinking cinema. He wanted to do something to satiate his appetite for movies. And one fine day when he was sleeping he met his matinee idol in his dreams. It wasn’t first time when he has some movie dream, but it was different because it had his first conversation with his ideal who talked to him putting his hands on his shoulders.

Earlier too he saw dreams about movies and on many occasion hit his siblings when the climax of the films have appeared in his sleeps. He would make raucous noises ‘Dishum Dishum, for which he was slapped in his sleep by his siblings. He was one strangely crazy movie buff who could do anything, if got a chance. It was madly obsession.

He was just ten years of age, when all these happened. He was not good in studies but he did shoulder a head that was creative and experimental.  His conversations always had the spices of Bollywood; his speeches were full of dialogues of his favourite films. Number of times, especially on Sunday’s he secretly slipped to his neighbour’s house to watch television, where he stood on the steps of the door watching the film with a gleeful delight. It did not matter to him who the actor or the director of the film was, neither did he understand the nuances of film making and nor did he know how a film developed. For him movies were just pure fun, even if it was a ‘C’ grade cinema.

May be today, the generation ‘X’ and ‘Y’ fathoms cinema more than what he ever did in his childhood days. However, they would never be able to beat his obsession which he possessed during those tender years that eventually lead him to create his own world of films away from the world’s eyes.

To feed his obsession he found a unique way. In a small town where houses were small and made up of mud (khaprail), luckily his family could afford him a concrete terrace and room on the roof. It was the roof where most of his days passed, experimenting with different things of entertainment and play. He developed an interest of collecting movie posters from the newspapers. To increase his collection of film cuttings, he squeezed old newspapers from his father’s drawer. His eyes were keen on one publication that came from Bombay, an Urdu daily ‘Inquilaab’ which had one dedicated page for the movies running in Bombay theatres.

No doubt that a child is more innovative and creative than a young man, he has nothing to lose, so he is capable of risking things, just for fun sake. He is not concerned about the failure or success of his experiments but is only concerned about the objective that he passionately wants to reach. Thus, even this ten year old did whatever he could to fulfill what his mind had conceived and what his heart had formed, overlooking everything else.

He chose few corners of his house to sketch his dreams into reality. He was not the only kid in the house; he has two siblings younger to him and two cousins of his age. They all were movie enthusiast but not as passionate as him. He didn’t give another thought to what will happen if his father comes to know it? He was not afraid of the slaps which could be received if his father came to know about what he was planning to do. He was willing to bear any punishment in the world to fulfill his desires and turn his imaginations into reality.

And so unflinchingly, he began his experiments; the corners that he choose soon started displaying the cuttings which he collected from the newspapers. They were small – passport size – but one was bigger in size that was put on display on a height which could not be visible if he has used the small size on the terrace. He then used a cardboard shade to give a cover to the poster, in case it rained and above that it he wrote ‘Chal raha hai’, which meant ‘Now Showing’ in English.

It was just a small small step towards the big leap. His posters and cuttings were not merely a satiating spectacle to his voracious desire of films. It leads to more innovation and creativity and soon new things started appearing. He started thinking what he could do next to make it like a theater. If today he would be given a chance he would definitely go and buy a projector but in those days, neither had he heard of it nor by chance has he seen a glimpse of it. But, he wanted to create a theater like spectacle around himself.

The idea of making a machine struck him when he got an opportunity to visit a newly inaugurated ‘Cinema Hall’ in his town. The young man working at his father’s shop happened to be a distant relative to the theater owner and he took him for a visit to the theater. He showed him the room where the film’s reels were kept, from where the films are played on the screen and how it is played. He saw everything with keen interest and sketched whole things into his small brain.

After his return, he developed the whole idea in his dreams, weaving a ground of fascination where he was lauded for his creativity by his siblings. When he woke up in the morning he started wondering where he could start from. He wanted to develop something which would allow him to see bigger images than what he saw in the theatre. It was his ultimate desire, fulfillment of which was making him sleepless. He kept on thinking about it and even then could not get a concrete solution.

When nothing came to his mind he took a cardboard, framed it into a square shape, procured two iron rod of small sizes and fixed it on both ends, in way as if he was going to hang an object to it. As the whole thing started getting shape the thought of hanging came true when he tied a bulb in the air with the help of a string attached to both the poles. Once it was done, he went to the market and managed a power glass which he puts in a holder which he made in front of the bulb. It allows the light to directly fall on the glass which reflected the light to the curtain – screen – hanging with the wall.

Once everything was done and he was satisfied with himself, the cloud of the film’s print started haunting him. After much thinking and pondering, one day he went to his father’s shop and told that young man about what he required. He asked whether he could manage some old reels dumped in the theater. The man looked at his face but nodded in affirmation after looking at his innocent and pleading smile.

Thus, the young boy was able to enter the theatre again; he was guided towards the projection room where the three men in their 20’s looked at him and asked, “what he would do to these reels,” he shyly told them that he has created an instrument that will make these picture look bigger and he could see his loved actors around him. They all looked at him in utter surprise and one of them said, “Kya bhai hamara cinema hall ban karwaoge kya”? (What man, do you want to wound up our theatre business?)  And they all laughed in chorus before handing him reels stacked at one corner of the room.

If you had seen him, you could have easily understood how he was feeling. It looked as if someone has given him the keys of the secret chamber. He was flying in the air before jumping on his cycle.

The exhilaration of his accomplishment knew no bound; he paddled as fast as he can to reach his house and once he reached home, he searched for his siblings who were playing there on the terrace. He asked them to gather into the room and told them that he had something to show them which they have never seen before – a theatrical experience. They all looked at each other with astonishment as he was speaking it in excitement. They all entered into the room one by one where he has created his dreamed existence.

They all sat around his newly created machine – projector – and started looking at the screen which was hanging on the walls with a blank look. He moved a step forward to switch on the power but stopped in between and looked around. He saw the faces of his audiences – his siblings- who were in awe and surprise, looking everything attentively, focussed on the screen, without knowing what will happen when he will start the machine. Their elbows were resting on their knees, their palms were holding their faces to keep it straight, and make them see the screen and nothing else with utmost interest.

He took a deep breath and moved towards the switch board, after switching off the lights he plugged in the open wires of his invented machine and the bulb on the machine lightened up. He sat close to his conceived baby and rolled the film in front of the bulb that struck first on film and then on glasses devised to enlarge the frame on the screen. As soon as the first frame appeared on the screen there was a shrill sound of excitement, surprise and amazement that was clearly visible everyone’s face including him. All of them overjoyed and mesmerized by an out of the world experience.

They were still in their world of amusement, suddenly a knock on the door found them changing their places. They hardly understood anything before a shadow elapsed and demolished their entire place. His father was standing there, furious and angry before ordering them to leave the room. Their heads were down, looking on the floor in fear and they all walked one by one out of the room.

His bioscopy experience was a success without measure, and thrill could have taken him to another phase but unluckily his father’s intervention has marred his bioscopic world. Sadly, it was his last creative experiment. The success soon faded away from their memories, the experience of the childhood went into the dust as soon as they grew older.

In the later years, no matter how much he tried, he was unable to recreate the magic that had once brought a dream of going beyond the horizons under his creation years ago, on that small inconspicuous terrace.