Gupta began doing odd jobs like selling tea and fruits before he was hired as a projector operator at Deepak Cinema in Lower Parel where he screened Hindi movies for about two years. In 1992, he joined Bharatmata Theatre, but this time he was asked to screen Marathi movies.
"Mi kadhich konala Marathit boltana aikla nhavta (I had never heard anyone speak Marathi before),” said Ramashish Gupta as he reminisced the day on which he had arrived in Mumbai from Bihar in 1986. The 44-year-old said he picked up the language on the job.
At a time when the state government has taken a lot of flak for failing to promote Marathi, Parel resident Gupta is among thousands of ‘outsiders’ who have adopted the language in their second home. Maharashtra observes Marathi Bhasha Diwas today.
Gupta began doing odd jobs like selling tea and fruits before he was hired as a projector operator at Deepak Cinema in Lower Parel where he screened Hindi movies for about two years. In 1992, he joined Bharatmata Theatre, but this time he was asked to screen Marathi movies.
“During earlier days, we had to physically change the film reels. To ensure uninterrupted screening, two people had to be behind the projector during shows. It also meant that I had to watch all the Marathi movies. Initially, I would ask my colleague Shyam Sunder Apankar explain the dialogues to me. But then over a period of time, I started picking up the language.”
While his Marathi ‘sessions’ continued at Bharatmata, living among Maharashtrians further improved Gupta’s grasp over the language. “As I gained confidence, I started speaking to the locals in Marathi. My kids too speak fluent Marathi as they have grown up here and studied it in school.” said Gupta, who lives in a rented house with his wife, two sons and a 7-year-old daughter.
Gupta says he is no longer under compulsion to watch the movies during shows as the old-age projectors have been replaced by digital machines. “But I still watch them. Marathi is a wonderful language and has many similarities with Hindi. In fact, it has become my first tongue.”
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