In the early days of film society, was there an enthusiastic crowd to watch films?
Viewers were very few in number. We used to arrange the screenings with great difficulty, financial and infrastructural. We didn’t have a permanent venue to screen. Each screening was held at different places. And even when you arrange everything, only a handful of people came to watch them. People thought it was madness. Standing and watching people passing by in the street while a classic was being screened before a thin audience, I used to wonder: What a pity, they don’t realise what they are missing! What was the response of the writers and intellectuals? Did they participate in your programmes? Interestingly, it was not the so called intellectuals and writers who showed enthusiasm to watch these films, but students from the university, engineering college, medical college, ‘ordinary’ employees at the bank or government. It was a revelation to me. Among the intellectuals, there was always this tendency to look down upon films. After coming back from the institute, were you confiden
