Aao, aao, aao…" the husky chant reaches me from the auditorium door briefly ajar for an usher exiting. Other employees of Maratha Mandir solicitously assure I will soon meet the theatre's executive director, Manoj Desai. Meanwhile, I'm fascinated to explore the various foyer levels of a theatre with decidedly more distinguished interiors than its bland facade.

Unravelling inside, the matinee to beat all matinees ticketed averaging an affordable 20 bucks, flashes the pigeon feeding scene of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, in its unprecedented 25th year. It was an impromptu sequence. Reporting on Aditya Chopra's set ahead of Amrish Puri, SRK started to scatter grain for the birds. Puri came, adding the gravelly "Aao". An earlier Chopra family link here was BR Chopra's Sadhna, inaugurating Maratha Mandir in 1958.