You know you’re in India when a night at the cinema starts with three people – one of them a young child – being thrown from a motorbike in front of you, followed by a mêlée of bystanders arguing over what happened and who was responsible. The kid was okay, just a little scared at the thought of being thrown from a bike doing about 5kph. But it certainly makes for a more lively start to the night than the 380 to Bondi Beach missing its stop outside the multiplex.

Actually, scratch that. You really know you’re at an Indian cinema when you stand for the national anthem before the film. Now, I’ve stood for many national anthems, usually before rugby matches, but I have to say I’ve never heard a country’s song played before a screening of Slumdog Millionaire.

I’m sure that when my grandmother attended the “moving pictures” at the local Kogarah cinema she stood for God Save The Queen (or King). In fact, she’d probably have felt right at home at the Bandra cinema where we saw Slumdog. It was a little slice of the past that has been swept away in most other places.

With just 50 or so seats, it was smaller than many home cinemas in your average McMansion in the burbs and the decor was “kids’ playroom decorated for Christmas pantomime”. The sound-proofing boards were painted in bright, primary colours while the screen was surrounded by flashing fairy lights. Mercifully, these were turned off the film.

The concession stall was the usual collection of soft drinks and popcorn, although there were no choc-ices and the popcorn was spicy, not salty. Downstairs sat three video games that I was right at home with: the vertical type that played Galaga and Space Invaders. Anyone born in the 1970s knows what I’m talking about.

The good thing was that there was no need to stock up on snacks before the film. You could always pop out during intermission and grab a samosa and a Pepsi. Yes, that’s right, as well as standing for the anthem and not having to watch trailers for 15 upcoming films, we were treated to a break in the action.

Of course, film-makers these days aren’t really thinking of a break in the middle of their epic, so the action at the cinema got cut off at a rather arbitrary point. In this case, just as the protagonist met up with the long-lost love of his life.

Speaking of Slumdog, it was a real sensation watching it in an area not far from where it was filmed. Many parts of it were like looking out our apartment window: slums, street kids, and overcrowded trains are part of everyday life here. The film did get a few backs up in India, with claims that it was “poverty porn” and didn’t depict the “real” India.

A lot of these complaints came from the Bollywood set who inhabit a world away from that depicted in the film. They crowd around the other side of the peninsula in a world of sea-front mansions where India’s poverty is kept at bay behind gates and watchmen. What really annoyed them was that a Westerner had made a film that far outshone the trite pap pumped out by the Bollywood brigade.

The film really captured the Bombay I see every day: a world in constant flux where the old is fast being torn down and replaced by the new. I just hope that as the inevitable change continues to sweep through Bandra it can leave aside my little gem of a cinema, where in 50 years people will still be standing for the national anthem and popping out at half time for a samosa and spicy popcorn.