Video Cassette

During the late 80s and early 90s renting VCRs, VCPs and Video cassettes will be among the top favorite moments of mine.

There used to be 4 shops which used to rent players and cassettes. When a decision is taken at home to rent a player the excitement will start. We used to run from one shop to the other each shop will have players in different sizes. The players most of the time will be put inside a leather bag.

After securing the player the next important job is to select the movie. Some shops will have a catalogue (loosely joined papers) in which the newly released movies will be hand written. We can see some cassettes lying here and there and my eyes will wander over all the cassettes. Some shops will not have any cassettes in display. Whatever we ask he will go inside a room and bring the cassette. My heart will be jumping to know what is inside that magic room.

The discussion with the rental guy on which movie is available and when it should be returned is another wonderful moment. Sometimes the movie we want would have just gone out or would just come in.

During those times I considered that having a video rental job is the dream job. But now after so many years none of those 4 shops survived. I used to think that business will run forever but I have been proved wrong. I wonder what those people are doing now. I still go past the two of the shops where I had had some of my best moments they now remain closed. No new shops have come there, they just remain closed.