No, don’t jump into conclusions, clench fists in rebellion or nod heads in agreement as yet. For, I’m NOT reviewing the movie here, because I haven’t watched it yet. Anyways, you shouldn’t be reading a review before watching the movie, if you can help it. This is rather about how I managed not to watch the movie despite spending a full day at the cinema. 
Update: I finally managed to watch it, seventeen days past the original attempt.
Almost two years in the making, the most-expensive-Indian-movie tag, monstrous amounts of hype – reasons never run out for wanting a go at the clichéd magnum opus as soon as it hits the screen. But Kamal Haasan is always going to be reason enough for me. Fan, I am.
Reserving tickets for the release day was the smart thing to do, but that didn’t happen, obviously. With that crowd and no reservations, morning show (the first show of the day) was plain impossible. After shuttling between the two release centers, the six of us (classmates) decided to bide time in the serpentine queue at Ajantha Theatre with the hope of getting tickets for the next show (matinee). Only, the queue had enough people to fill two theatres. So we stood in the queue, taking turns in two or three, and watched all the release-day circus happening around (Oh, it was my first first-day). Black-market ticket hawkers, skirmishers in the crowd, police patrols keeping a tab on the affairs and OB vans (not to be confused with Obi-Wan 
) of local media being the notable performers in the sideshow.
Matinee was looking bleak, and the sun was raining down fury. Ice-sticks, those dinky delights from heaven! 
By this time the morning show had ended, and people coming out weren’t all praise, to the point of being severe. I didn’t give a damn for the regulation dont-lose-your-money advice from the people who made me stand in the queue in the first place. And, standing in the sun for hours on end is, taxing, to say the least. Don’t attempt it alone, for the tamasha happening around you can amuse for some time, but it can’t last you the wait. Nor music.
So, at last, we are probably half-an-hour away from tickets for the first show (as in cinema jargon) at 5:30 in the evening. Yeah, ponder the elapse of time. Enter the villain. Another three guys from college, one of whom promises us tickets to the show through the manager of the cinema he supposedly knows. And the incredible happens – we leave the queue on his word. It’s like leaving your wife of fifty years for a shady lady you ran into at the street. Perhaps the sun was getting to us, and a short reprieve sounded like heaven. And of course, the climax is foreseeable at this point – the tickets don’t arrive as promised. Well, three of them he did get us, but we were six. And of course, the guys who were at the hind of the beloved queue we were heading as we left, all had their tickets. After asking ourselves whether we should all leave black-hawking the three tickets, three of us decided to leave, including me. Jasim was particularly ruffled and bitter (not because he wasn’t watching the movie, but of the incredibility that he wasn’t).
Yeah, I wanted to watch the movie like hell, and could have easily got someone else to let me, but the events of the day and my sun-cooked brain had pushed me past the point of wanting anything. 
LOSER.
Silver lining: It helped break the blogck, though the longevity is suspect.
