Pravinbhai Thakker's eyes are alit as he displays his treasure, handling each piece carefully, explaining its significance and reminiscing about the effort his nearly 40 year long obsession has taken to maintain.
Thakker, a former peon with the Golden Tobacco Company has a unique hobby, one that is symbolic of the nation's obsession with cinema -- he has a collection of 3,397 movie tickets that he has collected painstakingly since 1968.
"I have worked with a tobacco company for 28 years, but never smoked a cigarette. My only vice is that I have to watch the latest movie every week and then store away the ticket. Each ticket is a memory of some celluloid moment that I have enjoyed," Thakker says.
"I watched my first movie in 1957, when I was all of 19. The movie was Mother India and the ticket at the time was 69 paise. At the time I used to work as a helper in a store in Central Mumbai, and earned a total of 12 anna per day," he says with a smile.
Thakkers collection fills up an entire suitcase, with tickets marked according to the year. Dog eared, torn and literally falling to pieces, some of his tickets date way back as 1968 and cost as little as 50 paise.
Each piece has markings on it, stating the date and time the movie was watched, the number of reels it had, the number of people Thakker watched the movie with.
In many ways, his collection is a chronicle of India's cinematic history from the late 60's and Thakker has been a avid witness to the movie revolution India has witnessed.
"I have so far spent Rs 31,407.37 on my hobby, but no regrets. My children are all settled. My family does not begrudge my this hobby at all, and I am happy to continue with it," Thakker says.
His achievement has also been noted in the Limca Book of Records in the year 2003.
Having watched so many films, however makes Pravinbhai somewhat of an expert on Indian cinema, and he is not afraid of airing his opinions on the same.
"Amitabh Bachchan should retire now," he declares, saying "he has overstretched himself. I remember him in his earlier days, and he has none of the energy that he displayed then. Of course, he still remains one of my favourite actors".
Thakker also has something to say on the new breed of multiplexes springing up all over the city. "They are too expensive. With Rs 200 I can watch four movies in a single screen theatre, but it may not even buy me a single ticket in one of these new fangled multiplexes. And after all, they both show the same movie, isn't it", he asks with a twinkle in his eye.
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