Song, dance, AAP cola and a blockbuster show

NEW DELHI: Delite Cinema, one of central Delhi’s oldest movie theatres, is usually a packed house every weekend. But this was not a usual Saturday.

People passed by the hall in ones and twos — and some in groups — with barely a second glance at the large cut-outs of Ranbir Kapoor’s romantic thriller Roy and Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s genre-defying MSG: The Messenger.

For, barely a few hundred metres away, curtains were about to go up for the biggest show of the day at the Ramlila Maidan: The Return of the Aam Aadmi.

It had all the ingredients of a Bollywood blockbuster — a likeable protagonist, a dash of Valentine’s Day romance, some soul-stirring dialogue, the inescapable song-and-dance routine as well as a guaranteed happy ending.

Thousands of enthusiastic and slogan-shouting people, most of them Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supporters, walked nearly a mile under an unusually hot February sun and through several security checks to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Delhi’s new chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his team.

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A man with a ‘5 saal Kejriwal’ sticker on his palm stands out amid a sea of supporters at the AAP leader’s swearing-in ceremony on Saturday. CM Arvind Kejriwal (R) addresses the crowd. GURINDER OSAN / AJAY AGGARWAL / HT

A supporter of Arvind Kejriwal at Ramlila Maidan. VIPIN KUMAR / HT