Bollywood movies are like Indian food. You get a craving for them every few days and are almost always disappointed after “enjoying” them. Yesterday was one of those cravings day. Surprisingly, my son was in the mood to let me and my wife watch the movie. I rented two DVDs, came home, set the food on the table, adjusted the AC setting, set the sound in my home theater and turned the movie on.

And there it was, again, the logo of the DVD distributor instead of the much expected movie menu. “Alright, I don’t care about your advertisement, I wanna see the movie!” I shouted and grabbed the remote and hit the ‘Next’ button to skip to the menu. A little prohibition sign with a red circle and a line passing through it appeared – as if it was smiling at me and saying, “Not so fast buddy, you have to watch our advertisement.” I wasn’t surprised much. “You think this is the only way I can shut you up? I will directly hit the menu button to jump to the main menu.” I said in my mind and hit the menu button. The same sign – this time it was saying, “Do you really think we are stupid and didn’t think of that?” “Damn!” I cried and hit the fast forward button. Ashamed of my defeat I didn’t even look at the sign this time… the advertisement was still going on.

The DVD took its own time to walk me through all the new releases, showing me how great an Indian sweet maker was, telling me where to get the great jewelry in the US and finally showing the looooong awaited menu. “Thank God!” I said – I had finished almost half of my meal.

I started the movie and guess what, there were English subtitles. I understood the language very well and I wasn’t deaf so I didn’t need subtitles. I pressed the menu button again to turn off the subtitles, but now subtitles screen had the word “ON” and “OFF” in two different colors. How would I know which one was selected? I guessed (fortunately correctly) and selected “Return to the Movie” option. To my surprise, the movie started from the beginning, not from where I had interrupted it! My frustration went all time high. I was eating with one hand and pressing remote button with the other. I almost pressed the food in my hand and ate the remote. By the time I could start the movie and watch it with my preferred settings, I had finished my meal without enjoying it.

Why? Why you DVD makers cannot use common sense? Why can’t you design menus that are easy to use and understand? Why do you have to force viewers to watch all the crap in the beginning? Every time I stopped the movie or turned off the DVD player, I had to watch all the crap all over. This experience isn’t just one incident, it happens many times to many people (with very few exceptions). And after all the frustrations, the movie turns out to be unnecessarily long and boring. As always, I have decided not to watch another Indian movie for a long time but it’s only until my next craving before I have to go through the same cycle.