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Guest column: Oh dear! The times they are a-changin’
Nowadays, single-screen theatres have been replaced by multiplexes where the ticket price for a normal seat is around ₹250. The recliner seats in the top row cost up to ₹600. More significantly, watching a movie in a multiplex entails a slew of expenses, which exceed the price of the ticket
Bob Dylan’s ‘The times are a-changin’ strikes a chord. In the early 1980s, a balcony ticket at single-theatre screens just cost ₹5. We just spent a fraction of the money on light refreshments during the interval.
Nowadays, single-screen theatres have been replaced by multiplexes where the ticket price for a normal seat is around ₹250. The recliner seats in the top row cost up to ₹600. More significantly, watching a movie in a multiplex entails a slew of expenses, which exceed the price of the ticket.
Tickets are sold online at a premium of over 10% of the ticket amount. Euphemistically, called convenience fee, the premium is levied by portals selling the tickets. Another 18% GST is levied on the premium amount. Next, we shell out hefty parking charges. The most disproportionate of all are the rates of food and beverages! The individual prices of popcorn, coffee, and soft drinks are more than that of the movie ticket. Besides, multiplexes do not permit you to carry eatables from outside. Even if you buy just one food and beverage item, the average cost of watching a movie in a multiplex is at least ₹500 per person. The cost of watching a movie at a cinema hall has increased a 100-fold in 40 years.
The times, they are indeed changing. I have been frequenting the Chandigarh Railway Station for the last five years to pick up my daughter who travels by train from New Delhi to visit us. I would always reach the station around the time of the train’s arrival and pick her up without any hassle or making any payment.
For the first time in October, I had to pay ₹200 as pick-up fee. If the time from entry to exit exceeds 15 minutes, they charge ₹200. The movement of vehicles at a snail’s pace in just one lane for private cars at the exit point stoked suspicion. The clearance appeared to have been kept slow deliberately so that the time exceeded 15 minutes. You will be deterred from protesting by the intimidating demeanour of the personnel deployed there for collection. An accusation was also made on social media that the time on the device at the exit point is ahead by a couple of minutes from that at the entry point. If this is true, a few minutes are already subsumed by this subterfuge.
As we have grown impervious to the premium couched as ‘convenience fee’ levied by the portal selling train tickets online, we will also gradually get accustomed to pick-up charges at railway stations.
chander59@icloud.com
( The writer is a Panchkula-based freelance contributor)
