Of porn and Pasolini: the Palika Bazaar trail

(Did this light piece on DVD-buying in Palika Bazaar for Outlook’s City Limits magazine. Nothing substantial but fun to do, a nice change from those quote-collating stories where each para must begin with a sentence like “Plans are also underway to set up new retail outlets...” Yaarrghh!)

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I descend into the labyrinthine underworld that is Palika Bazaar wearing my shabbiest sweatshirt and jeans, face covered by a three-day stubble. “Look the part” was the counsel from experienced friends when they learnt I was going porn-hunting in the interests of journalism. I practice the upward curl on my lips; it makes me look both knowing and lecherous – I think.

I've barely entered the atrium on the upper floor of the famous underground bazaar when a young shop assistant approaches. “Seedies?” he enquires politely, this being how both VCDs and DVDs are referred to here. “Double aur triple hai?” I retort (the “X” is unnecessary in this setting) in what is intended to be a smooth, throwaway tone.

To all intents and purposes the shop was closed, but “double aur triple hai” would have knocked “Open Sesame” out cold in a fight: the shutters are yanked one-third of the way up, I’m escorted inside and back down they go again. The owner is unsuitably avuncular, he wears thick glasses, has a warm, open smile and this starts to feel awkward, like buying condoms from the friendly neighborhood chemist you’ve known since you were a child. But then he opens his mouth to speak. “You want combination, single, Asian, schoolgirl, kitty aunties, frontside, backside, oral, multiple? All varieties available. Full one-and-a-half hour. Rs 150 only.” (Kitty aunties?)

Dozens of discs are on display, the images on their covers leave nothing to the imagination. This isn’t cutesy Playmate of the Year stuff, it’s distressingly biological. They get new titles everyday, I’m told, “the best from around the world, over 500 to choose from”. Soon uncle senses I’m new at this, drops the connoisseur act. “Don’t worry, sabhi films mein sab kuch hai” – this said with a wink and a slight leer (he’s clearly been practicing at home as well). I excuse myself, say I’ll look at other options and return. The same routine is repeated at a dozen other shops, with minor variations in price. At one shop a young girl with a little boy in tow sticks her head under the shutter, asks if they have the Bunty aur Babli soundtrack; she is shooed away.

After half an hour of this I head downstairs to my favourite shop for regular DVD purchases, but my tongue is now on autopilot. “Double aur triple…I mean, world cinema ke titles dikhaana,” I say, as the guy behind the counter starts to shrink back. Like a seven-course meal set before a starving man, the films are spread out – Bresson’s austerity sharing space with Fellini’s flamboyance, silent classics like Griffith’s Floating Blossoms cheek by jowl with Japanese anime; it isn’t uncommon to hear impassioned discussions about Wong Kar-Wai or the French nouvelle wave in this tiny space.

This is one of many shops in Palika that sell the oxymoronic “original copies” – near-perfect prints for a mere Rs 200. The special features on some DVDs don’t work but that’s a small price to pay for immediate access to such a variety of titles – never has the movie buff in Delhi had such choice, not even at the peak of the videocassette era. And the more you frequent a shop, the more latitude you get, starting with a DVD-case for each disc you purchase. (By now I routinely get invited into the little loft above the shop to peruse the catalogue unhurried.)

Cries of “seedy?” rent the air as I clamber towards daylight, my hands full of polythene bags in which Fritz Lang and Ritwik Ghatak nestle alongside “combination triple ex-es”. Palika may not be on the level but it’s a great leveler. From serious film buffs to kitty-aunty admirers, we’ve all been here.

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(Incidentally, when I went to the Outlook office with DVDs for their photographer to shoot one of the rookies thought I was a Palika shop-owner. “Aap yeh DVDs kitne ki bechte hain?” he asked. Clearly the stubble and the upward curl had worked well.)