An array of stalls peddling Chinese fast food, watermelons, samosas, coconut water and pani puris welcomes you into the lane housing Narsimha-Krishna, or Talkie Town as it is now called. This twinplex caters to the suburb of Miyapur, including students of nearby colleges looking for more useful things to do than hang around in class.
A franchise of the Essel Group, Talkie Town is not a multiplex in the '
Prasads' sense of the word. It is still the pair of theatres it had integrated, with 1,116 seats in each, and the regular Rs. 50, Rs. 40 and Rs. 10 configuration of tickets. With neglected toilets to boot. And an intimidating pair of big fat pillars just past the security probe. And the gargoyles passing off as soft-drink dispensers at the snack counter.
They try, though. The tickets look more professional than a voter's polling slip, and the proactive staff wear uniformed T-shirts, and make sure you get to the right screen and then to the right seat. But when the inside of the hall's smelling like a train, and the management decides you don't need the A/C in the second half of the movie, then you get the feeling you're better off digging into carbohydrates at the gate, or attending college.
On the brighter side, since this is still a conventional theatre, and not one of those gleam fests that treat front-benchers and back-benchers the same - the legroom and visual experience are directly related to how much you pay. Come interval, and you'd have to head to the canteen on the ground floor, that smells like your good old neighbourhood bakery and stocks quite an ambitious range of foodstuffs at down-to-earth prices.
On the whole, Talkie Town is an above average outing for the way-out-of-town fringe that is Miyapur. Maybe 'above average' is working out great now, but a little sanitizing and some touch-up would do itself and its patrons good.