First Screening of 83 ft. Class of '83

Chapter 1

Half the Bollywood film industry seemed to have turned up for the big premiere of the 83 on 22nd December, 2021, easily touted as the biggest movie in a long time.

The original team of 1983, of course, were in the frontmost seat with two dozen officials hovering around them to ensure they were comfortable, which only served to make some of them more uncomfortable.

Among those two-dozen people was Saqib Saleem, who was taking on as much menial work as he could to pretend to himself his knees weren't trembling and he wasn't feeling so nervous that he would cry at the slightest provocation.

"I'll take that, I'll take that—" he cried, snatching a tray of coffee cups from one of the waiters so violently, two cups toppled over and coffee splashed onto Hardy's shoes.

"What exactly are you trying to do?" asked Hardy.

Saqib tried to steady his hands to prevent the rest of the cups from falling.

Calm down, calm down, calm down...

"C-carrying coffee, what else d'you think?" he said.

"Hello, Saqib, Hardy," said Ballu sir, who'd just arrived.

Two more cups toppled over.

"Be careful, kid—why don't you hand it over to the waiters?" asked Ballu in concern.

"I'm sorry, I'll just—hope you have a nice time watching the movie, sir." Saqib darted away, head spinning now.

Hardy followed him, calling a, "Hey!"

The fifth cup went down.

"Jesus," swore Saqib. "Don't do that!"

"You're acting like an absolute clown," Hardy informed, forcefully taking the tray away from him. "Go sit down somewhere."

"I can't just sit down somewhere," said Saqib frantically.

"But you should."

"How are you so—calm?"

"Why are you so hyper?" asked Hardy, not illogically. "We gave our hearts out for this movie. We gave it our all. And we know it's good."

"We do?"

"Yes, Saqib, the audience at the Film Festival gave it a standing ovation and half of them came out crying," said Hardy patiently. "We were there, remember? We saw them."

"But those were just—just random people," said Saqib desperately. "What if the—the team doesn't like it? What if Jimmy sir doesn't like it?"

"For god's sake, why won't he like it?" asked Hardy, who absolutely couldn't relate with his friend at that point of time.

Saqib turned around to where the team was sitting and saw that Jimmy sir had already arrived and was indeed, looking at him.

"Sir, sir—good evening, Jimmy sir," he said, rushing over. "You too, Kapil sir," he added hastily.

"Good evening, child. All good?" said Jimmy.

"Yes, yes, perfectly, we're all set—I mean—it's all set—"

"Why don't you sit down?" said Jimmy mildly. "There's no need to be so nervous."

"I'm not—I'm not nervous," said Saqib, teeth clattering, remembering that Mohinder Amarnath wasn't nervous very often.

"All right," said Jimmy, eyes twinkling. "Sit down anyway," he said, indicating at the empty seat beside him, which, in an alter universe, would most definitely have been occupied by Yash.

"No, Jimmy sir, these seats are exclusively for your team—" said Saqib. "I can sit in the row behind, though..." He jumped over the front row of seats and almost fell as his blazer got caught on one of the handles.

He felt Jimmy sir and Kapil sir watching him with a hint of amusement. Face flaming, when he finally managed to slip into the seat directly behind Jimmy, the lights of the theatre had started going out.

Hardy and Jatin had come up and occupied the seats on either side of Saqib as the hall went completely dark, only the screen, now showing the sponsors, throwing a glow.

That was when reel Mohinder Amarnath realized, having taken the seat directly behind real Mohinder Amarnath, he couldn't even look at the latter's face for reactions.

"Jat," he whispered. "Switch seats with me, will you?"

"No," said Jatin, who had already taken off his shoes and was reclining, cross-legged with an enormous bucket of popcorn.

"Switch with me," said Hardy hastily before Saqib could explode.

"Thanks," said Saqib gratefully.

"What are you guys doing?" demanded Ranveer, who'd been on Hardy's other side.

"Nothing," said Saqib.

"Shhh!" said Jiiva in a piercing whisper.

Zee Music's soundtrack played over him.

**************

Jimmy closed his eyes, because he knew what was coming next.

If by closing his eyes, he'd hoped to escape the knowledge of what was being shown on the screen, he was mistaken, because Kapil grabbed his wrist from the left; whether to offer or gain comfort, he wasn't sure. From his right, Madan sniffed a bit too loud.

So he ended up opening his eyes, after all, to catch the last second of Yash's smiling face, and 'We miss you, Yash pa.'

Jimmy wondered if anyone outside the thirteen people in the front row knew the extent to which you could miss Yashpal Sharma—well, outside his family, of course, but still—

In black and white, Viv Richards had just hit the lofted shot that'd change Indian cricket's destiny forever.

"Ruk, Yash, tu ruk ja!"

On the screen, Kapil and Yash converged on to the catch.

Yash, again—Jimmy found his eyes screwed shut yet again, giving Kaps's hand a squeeze..

"India—zindabaad, India—zindabaad..."

For a moment...just a moment, Jimmy considered walking out of the theatre because he couldn't do this.

"Do you need anything, Jimmy sir?" an anxious voice asked in a whisper behind him. "Should I bring a coffee for you?"

In the glow of the screen, as he leant forward between Jimmy and Maddi's seats, Saqib's eyes were gleaming with terror, anxiety, hope, everything all at once, which he might've thought he'd managed to mask, but he hadn't. He had always been an open book anyway.

"No, beta, it's fine...you watch..."

Of all the people involved in the movie, few people had taken it as much to heart as Saqib had—and everyone knew it, but Jimmy knew it best of all.

Of course he could not just walk out of the theatre.

Jimmy smiled at Saqib—who smiled back, which looked more like a grimace, mingled as it was with so much terror—and turned back to the screen.