PALLADIUM CINEMA LAL CHOWK SRINAGAR

( A view of Palladium Cinema building before 1990 . Not My Photo . I Thank the Up loader  of this photograph on Face Book.  )

( Present Photograph of the Cinema Building  by Autar Mota   )

“Come Near . Put your one ear close to the door . Close the other ear with your hand . Listen . Can you hear Dharmendra ‘s voice ?” said my friend kuldeep Machama

“Yes ” I said .

That is how during our college days we would listen to the Dialogues of actors from the road side gate of Palladium cinema lal chowk. Later in my service career, I came to know the proprietors as well. They were possibly from Jalandhar ( Punjab ). They were liberal in giving passes for the Gallery when demanded .They would visit the bank to purchase bank drafts generally favouring ELORA FILMS , possibly a distribution house for north India .The cinema was in the heart of the city or one could say privy to many events that shaped the History of kashmir since early forties . I have seen a photograph of  1945 wherein  Sheikh  Mohd Abdullah and Bakshi Ghulam Mohd  are shown addressng a public meeting at lal Chowk exactly  in front of this cinema hall.

“Tu Mun Shudi, mun Tu Shudi ,

Taa Kuss na Goyad Bad Azeen ,
Mun Deegaram Tu Deegari.”

This Persian couplet meaning “You become me , and so do I become thee . That makes us together just ONE ” This is how late sheikh Mohd Abdullah addressed Pandit Jawahar lal Nehru in a gathering at lal Chowk srinagar in 1947.Those who came to listen these leaders say that the dais for this mammoth gathering was just opposite Palladium cinema .

With  No parking  facility , the doors of the main  hall opened straight on the Road. You had to go up the gallery or box seats through the road only.The tickets for the third class( as it used to be called ) were required  to be purchased by lining up in a queue totally covered by Iron bars . Once in this queue , you had no option to come out except after reaching the ticket window . Men selling tickets in black , Onlookers , Pedestrian crowd, Fish frying mobile shops , Pen sellers , Chaurasia’s Pan shop and other small time traders on the road gave a total roadside aura to this cinema hall. .Once a show was over , crowds would pour out choking the narrow roads on both sides of the hall.

 I have seen late night shows with Men throwing burning cigarette bits to the screen like missiles . Some times some one would cry “ Soruf ! Soruf! ” Snake! Snake! ”. Some times some one would put his hand or head or whole body against the Projector’s beam creating silhouettes on the screen . Watch any show ,the hall was always full of smoke . None could escape the headache that usually visited cinema goers in  srinagar city cinema Halls purely on account of smoke created by large scale smoking . Cigarettes were brought  by boys who would sell tea and snacks inside the hall moving from one seat to another  in  total darkness. The gates would keep opening  with people entering as late as one hour after the start of the movie.  Lo ! you had to listen to other soundtrack going on in the lower stall. Men drunk( Liquor ) or otherwise would pass loud comments on actions of Hero or the villain . Sometimes clapping in applause and at times cursing the villain loudly. Having said so , it also remains a fact that the proprietors brought new and very good movies for screening . I saw some popular Dustin Hoffman movies in this cinema hall only. We saw Saturday Night Fever twice in this cinema hall.

A shopping mall is  reportedly  coming up on the ruins of this cinema hall. Local traders are demanding that a parking place be built  after clearing the ruins . Both options give some   pain to those who have seen glory of this cinema Hall .  But what can one do except express helplessness . Time has to move forward . It can not stop for sentiments . Sentiments are of no value in this market driven  and utility oriented  society. A  society  that is   moving forward by   trampling  emotions and sentiments all over .

 Enjoy this write up with some lines from a poem of Parveen Shakir .  I have already said in my write ups  that Romanticism runs through her poetry. For instance, yeh Haseen shaam Apni is a love poem  of exceptional beauty . It continues to  remain a favourite of mine  . The poem has been rendered to excellent english translation by C M Naim. .

This melting evening of ours,
Where everything dissolves,
The scent of your clothes,
The blossoming sprouts of my dreams,
A deferred vision, this is
In a little while,
A star will emerge on the horizon
To gaze at you meaningfully…
Your heart shall then reminisce
The echo of a memory,
The tale of a separation,
Of an unfinished moment,
Of un-blossomed dreams, things unsaid,
We ought to have met
In times, considerate
In pursuit of attainable dreams,
On a different sky,
On a different earth,
We ought to have met


( Parveen Shakir )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.