Rajini fans brave queues, get lathi-charged for movie tickets
Chennai
Just like the lyrics of its song, Neruppu da, Kabali fever has caught on like wildfire among Chennaiites. Tickets have been booked in advance by families, corporate groups and college buddies to enjoy their Superstar’s film much in advance for the full week. It is a long weekend for many, as Friday has either been declared a holiday; while many others are taking the day off. Within 20 minutes, many halls in the city had run out of tickets on the first day of booking.
Photographs of serpentine queues outside halls were shared on social media by fans. There were even reports of a few cases where police had to resort to lathi-charge to control the crowd. Many even posted photos of their ‘first day first show’ tickets of Kabali and many others are on the verge of doing ‘anything’ to get hold of one. The Facebook page ‘Extra Tickets’, where people sell movie tickets online are filled with posts requesting for tickets of the film.
“I managed to get five tickets for the 7 am show on Saturday but I want to get the first day first show. I can’t possibly wait till Saturday and I am willing to pay extra for Friday show,” says S. Suresh, who has been actively seeking the tickets on social media platforms. Ashwin Amalraj is another Rajini fan who was selling 10 tickets for the 4 am show on July 22.
“My friends and I had a whole plan on how to get Ka bali tickets for the 4 am show. We were trying out for tickets at different theatres across the city. Booking opened at different window periods for different theatres. Our priority was to watch it in Woodland theatre but that we couldn’t manage. However, we managed to get tickets for Meenakshi Cinemas in Avadi and another friend managed to get Kabali tickets for the renovated Rohini theatre. We picked the latter option. So now we have extra tickets and are selling them off.”
He says he will start from home at 2 am to get to the theatre for the 4 am show. “We are expecting heavy traffic, so we plan to start early. We do not want to miss even a single second of the movie,” he adds. There were some who partied on Thursday night and then directly went for the 4 am show on Friday.
“I am watching the first show in Kasi theatre. My friends and I started the celebrations at 9 pm on Thursday by pub-hopping, sporting t-shirts with Rajini’s face or dialogues. We reached the theatre by midnight and danced to the music arranged by the organisers. We then stepped in to watch the movie. After the first show, we will head to Albert theatre for the next show and end the day by watching it at Mayajaal,” says D. Murugesh, who has been planning the Kabali Friday for weeks now.
Grant holiday, tickets for Rajini film
The social media was full of leave applications, special requests of tickets shared by fans of Rajini on Thursday. While many will call in sick on Friday, there were others who decided to be upfront about it and sent their applications requesting the day off to watch Kabali. There was also a request to a hall owner by PA of Minister of Info and Publicity to send across 10 tickets of the first show.
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