A part of the gang that watched the film together

The Facebook event page inviting Salman Khan fans to watch the first day, first show at Jaya Cinema in Lake Town

On Independence Day, I watched Ek Tha Tiger with over 100 crazy Salman Khan fans, myself included.

It was the first day, first show at Jaya Cinema in Lake Town and watching it together was a mind-blowing experience.

As one can imagine, the planning for such a big event — complete with posters, party poppers and puja — had to start early.

Around July 15, my cousin Harsh Dhandharia, who is in first-year college, and I created a Facebook event and sent online invitations to lots of friends.

In the Lake Town-Bangur area, we are HUGE Salman Khan fans and we have watched all his films together — be it Ready, Wanted, Dabangg or Bodyguard. But the excitement over Ek Tha Tiger was even bigger because it brought back the magical Salman-Katrina pair. And we had been desperately waiting for a Salman Khan film for one year!

Some 140 people confirmed on our Facebook page that they wanted to join us. Another 50 said “may be”.

Harsh and I plunged into the preparations to make this movie a memorable experience for everyone. We bought whistles, snow sprays, party poppers and Salman posters.

Next we headed for Esplanade to pick up keffiyeh, the checked scarves that we had seen draped around Salman’s neck in the Ek Tha Tiger promos. Each scarf came for Rs 80 but we struck a hard bargain and managed to get them for Rs 50 apiece since we bought in bulk.

We also bought a coconut and incense sticks to do a puja to wish Salman good luck. Our friend Pratik Sharma helped us with the preparations.

What I was most worried about was the tickets. Getting so many tickets on the first day would be difficult. We are usually a huge group that goes for all Salman movies on the very first day — sometimes even 50-60 of us — but never had our crowd count crossed 100.

Advance booking at Jaya opened at 10.30am on Sunday. Taking no chances, I landed up at 8am. But there were already six or seven people waiting at the counter!

After standing in queue for three-and-a-half hours, I finally managed to get tickets, though only 105, not the 150 that we needed.

Another question was whether to invite girls or keep it an all-boys affair. I said no sisters, no girlfriends… because with girls around, we get conscious and can’t enjoy without a worry.

And boy, did we enjoy!

Before our show, which was at noon on Wednesday, we gathered before the theatre and honoured our hero, putting a tika on his poster for good luck. We put tilaks on one another’s foreheads too. We danced, we beat the dholak, we burst our party poppers and blew our whistles. We also went on a march around the neighbourhood. Since it was Independence Day, we carried the Tricolour too!

Inside the hall, we had a whale of a time. We clapped, whistled and cheered throughout the film.

Personally, my favourite moment was when Katrina was flying the plane and Salman leaped into it mid-air from a bike. It was just wow!

The film was everything I wanted from a Salman Khan movie and so much more!

High on Salman’s daredevil stunts and Katrina’s Catwoman act, I must now go back to my books. My exams start next week.

[Parag is a student of Class XII]