6 Film Buffs Recall The Many Charms Of Single Screen Cinema

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In June 1997, south Delhi’s new offering, PVR Anupam changed the way Indian cities consumed cinema. With four screens, Anupam became the first multiplex in the country. The old 1000-seater single screens, where only three shows could play in one day, made way for new, flashier multiplexes. This is the only way the urban generations born after the 1990s know how to watch films, and smaller towns are gradually making their way to the multiplex model too. As the old theatres fade away into oblivion, here are stories of Delhi from another time and a culture of cinema that is unlikely to ever come back again.

Tassadaque Hussain, 58

Tassadaque Hussain, 58, recalls many night shows in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, after wrapping up dinner at the Hindu College mess in Delhi University. His days were occupied in campus activities and as the evenings drew close, his hostel peers and he would make impromptu plans to catch a late night show. Hussain lived in Delhi on a shoestring student budget, which meant after paying Rs 150 for the monthly mess dues and Rs 12.50 for the DTC bus pass, he and his friends scraped enough for front row movie tickets. “At the time we used to pay Rs 1.25 for the front three rows at Chanakya. Now I have to pay Rs 400 for the same seats,” he says, bemused.

While the ‘80s were notoriously bad for Hindi cinema, Hussain remembers watching old English classics like Gone with the Wind and The Great Escape, which came to India later, at Chanakya and Archana cinema. Then there were the Hindi pulp fictions that filled seats in north Delhi theatres like Amba and Alpana. “Watching films was the only source of entertainment for us in those days,” says Hussain, as he recalls even watching an inane film with Dharmendra and Jeetendra in the lead, at a theatre in Kashmere Gate. “Mazedaar tha (it was fun)” he reminisces lightly.

The Delhi Hussain saw in his university days was starkly different from the one he lives in today. “Life was much simpler then,” he says, as he describes how a big gang of friends took a bus from north campus to Pandara Road, only to look at the new Maruti 800 a friend’s father had bought in 1983. Today, one can see neither the car on the roads nor the theatres that shaped so many of Hussain’s college experiences.

Tassadaque Hussain

Sarita Jain, 60

Sarita Jain can’t remember the last time she watched a film in a single screen theatre. Once a movie buff who paid to watch Sholay (1975) and Kabhie Kabhie (1976) five times, Jain shudders at the idea of her daughters shelling Rs 1,000 at multiplexes today, to watch one film. It’s not like Jain was frugal in her younger days. She recalls watching several films in the more expensive balcony seats of theatres across Delhi. Different phases of her life are marked by cinemas in various parts of the city. There was Deep Cinema, close to Lakshmibai College in Ashok Vihar, where she studied, which was subsequently charred in the 1984 Sikh riots. Then there were theatres near Delhi University’s north campus where Jain lived and eventually did her post-graduation from, like Amba and Alpana.

Through the ‘70s, Jain recalls watching films for as little as Rs 17. While the amount was not little in those days, it’s a world apart from the hike in today’s multiplex rates. Popcorn, which came in plastic packets, not tubs, would cost less than Rs 10, and Jain doesn’t remember watching any film without her favourite movie snack.

Today, she goes to the theatre perhaps five or six times in the whole year, that too only if her daughters insist she comes along. Paying as much as the movie ticket for a tub of popcorn pinches too much.

Sarita Jain

Deepa Banerjee, 63

Deepa Banerjee remembers hiking the three-kilometre distance between her house in Safdarjung Enclave and Chanakya cinema when it first opened in 1970. The film was Aan Milo Sajna, starring Vinod Khanna, Asha Parekh and Banerjee’s favourite, Rajesh Khanna. “Ask me today to walk from my front door to the colony gate, and I might weep! But in those days, the excitement to watch films was something else,” she recalls fondly. When Banerjee was little, buses full of Bengali families from across Delhi, including hers, would make an excursion to Daryaganj’s Delite Cinema, where Bengali films were screened every Sunday.

During her college years at south Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram College, Banerjee remembers giving many a class a miss to catch the matinee show at nearby Paras or Sapna cinemas. “We watched Purab aur Paschim, Sachaa Jhutha and so many Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh films more than five times in the hall,” she laughs, almost embarrassed at her past fanaticism. As students, Banerjee and her friends could only afford the front row seats that cost Rs 1.50, as she recalls. But they would often dip further into their pockets to buy the oily potato wafers in the lobby and a bottle of Campa Cola. “It was a different life,” she says.

Deepa Banerjee

Snehashish Bhattacharjee, 50

Snehashish Bhattacharjee has given business to several theatres over the years. As a child, he remembers watching old classics like Laurel & Hardy and Huckleberry Finn at the Archana complex in Greater Kailash, which is now home to the NDTV channel headquarters. Archana is also etched in his memory as the theatre where his karate class was treated to 36 Chamber of Shaolin (1978). “After the film, a group of teenagers in white uniforms walked out, flexing their arms and muscles,” he says, laughing as he thinks of the image in his head.

Another memory involving a large group was when 13 of his friends climbed into an Ambassador on a summer afternoon, to watch Choron Ki Baraat (1980) at the now-defunct Paras Cinema in Nehru Place. “The driver practically had to accommodate two people on his lap. It was a terrible film, but I’ll never forget the experience of going to the theatre,” he says. By the time Bhattacharjee was in college, he began to frequent Chanakya cinema, often bunking class to watch films there. Chanakya was also favourable for everything else it offered. The cinema shared a boundary with a Nirula’s, Delhi’s first fast-food chain, where Bhattacharjee and his friends spent many afternoons emptying their pockets on the classic Big Boy burger and Hot Chocolate Fudge. But they always made sure to keep Rs 2.50 aside to buy a rear stall ticket at the theatre.

Bhattacharjee, who watched Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa (1994) five times, continues to be a movie buff and actively patronises the multiplexes. But his old haunt, which has now been converted into a luxury mall and multiplex, The Chanakya, no longer features in his weekend movie plans.

Snehashish Bhattacharjee

Runa and Pallab Banerjee, 48 and 50

Runa and Pallab Banerjee, 48 and 50 respectively, have watched several films in Delhi’s single screens as a couple. Through the ‘90s, the two recall making frequent trips to Priya cinema in Vasant Vihar on their bike, which they later traded up for the newly launched Hyundai Santro, their first car. The Banerjees chose Priya because it was one of the few halls, other than Chanakya and Archana, which ran English films.

Even after Priya had been refurbished as a stylish theatre for English blockbusters, Runa shudderingly remembers an instance when a rat climbed up her dupatta. “It was not such a flashy, fancy affair in those days. Even a hall like Priya, which was top of the notch at the time, had issues like this, and we lived with it,” she now recalls fondly.

Priya’s rival, Chanakya, also received much patronage from the couple. One of the only 70 mm screens in Delhi at the time, Pallab remembers buying front row tickets for 1942: A Love Story (1994) at the last moment. The two subsequently spent 157 minutes of the runtime cocking their heads from left to right, like at a tennis match, trying to take in all 70 mm of the screen at once. Needless to say, front rows were subsequently avoided.

With the demise of the old theatres, several vibrant market complexes have also become obsolete. The Basant Lok complex in Vasant Vihar, where Priya is located, used to be an iconic spot that welcomed India’s first McDonald’s in 1996, the original Turquoise Cottage in 1997, followed by TGI Fridays. Today, the only business the market sees is at PVR Priya. Most other big chains pulled out after the malls in neighbouring Vasant Kunj came up in the early 2000s. Yashwant Place, next to the old Chanakya cinema met with a similar fate. While several generations have already grown-up among the multiplex culture, many old patrons no longer feel motivated to watch films in the hall. They’re still looking for a semblance of an old world, that’s fast fading away with every iconic building in Delhi making way for something new and more lucrative.