Chulbul Pandey in XLRI

We at XL know one thing - to live life XL size! We have formal committees for the most informal of all things in the world. While the most popular committee ensures the absence of sobriety on the campus, Film Lovers In XLRI (FLIX) has pirates who screen awesome-quality shit on huge lecture screens. If it's a movie, it's on FLIX.

I'm one of the six pirates of the campus. We have screened all kinds of movies - from downrightly sleazy to cult classics with audience-of-five. But, this Tuesday was different. We screened Dabangg. The rest is history.

Marketing maniac that I think I am, this was the first teaser that I sent to the batch.

Normally, teasers cease to be anything more than movie posters. They aren't teasers, really, in absence of the tease quotient. But hype had to be created this time. The subject of the teaser read "SCREENING OF THE YEAR".

By 8pm, Anshat and I decided to spice up the movie watching experience. We got popcorn, cold drinks and 'thanda' paan!!! And I sent out another teaser with strategically placed fonts.

Next, I printed out the following and stuck it in the hostel elevator.

(Munni Zandu Balm hui, Darrrling tere liye)

2315 hours. Lecture Hall 2. The experience.

Imagine sitting in a theatre in Bengal watching a Mithoon-Da movie from the first few rows with the "mass audience", as we elitists call them. The atmosphere was equally electrifying in XLRI. The hall with a seating capacity of 70 had 90 people to start with. Whistles, desk-bangings, roars of "Why are we waiting, FLIX is masturbating!"

Chulbul 'Robin Hood' Pandey then took the hall by a storm, a tsunami rather. It was a cheap, sleazy, double-meaning dime-a-dozen flick with a difference. Colossal screen presence of Salman even when he breaks into a dance everytime between a fight, Gawd-level action sequences and "Makkhi" - it was more than we could take. [Makkhi happens to be the nickname of a batchmate Nitin Makhija whose name was shouted everytime "Makkhi" was mentioned onscreen].

Dialogues like "Dekhen, kiske batashe kitney gol hain!" [Let's see, who has the balls!"] flared the lecture hall more than what's happening in Kashmir.

And, among all this, there was Anshat, shouting out his sales-pitch "Popcorn-popcorn-popcorn"!!!!

A night to remember!