My private space ...

Its funny, how much things are different in US, when compared to India. In India, if one has to see a movie on a weekend, then at least by wed/Thurs he would have to start hunting the online URLs for some movie, otherwise it is assured that there would not be any seats available. In US, I have never seen such a situation, even if you make it the last moment, you still get tickets. Just the difference in population, I guess ... :(

During the Christmas week end, I had a chance to watch couple of English movies, Apocalpyto and The Good Shepherd, both of which are ok movies, nothing great to write home about, but that is not what this blog entry is about. It is about the concept of space.

For Apocalypto, we reached the theater on a cold 24Th night (Christmas eve), and as expected there were hardly any people for it, so we ( a group of 4) sat right in the middle of the hall, and watched the movie together. There were hardly 10 more people, in that hall beside us.

While watching TGS, we reached just 5 mins before the show began, and to my surprise, I saw that even though the hall had at least 20% free seats, there was not even one place, where 2 people could sit together. This is mainly because of two things - no seat reservation, and the concept of private space in US.

Can you imagine that in India? I am amazed at the inefficient packing mechanism that theaters have employed. In such a scenario, what would one do in India?
1. Go back and start whining to the theater mgr?
2. Talk to people to shift so that they could sit together?

But in US, I saw that the concept of space is so highly (often over-rated) concept, that they want to maintain distance from the next group of people watching the same movie. People were actually willing to sit separately, and watch the movie, instead of taking the pains to get some re-arrangement done.

The reason I think is that, in India, movies are also a social thing, people sit together, talk, laugh, cry together, and this makes almost every movie worth it, whereas in US, I actually saw many persons coming just alone to watch a movie. Have you ever watched a movie alone? At least not me, of all the people I know, I just know one person who did this in his college days in India.

So coming back to the TGS show, it so happened that there I was sitting alone next to a young couple, who looked pissed that I was encroaching into their private space; and that pretty much made the movie even worse.

It will be an interesting exercise to see what would be the human behaviour in
1. India, without any seat reservations - I believe there are some theaters like this.
2. US, with seat reservations :)

Any one listening?