(MEMORIES PALLADIUM CINEMA, LAL
CHOWK, SRINAGAR)
“Come near. Put your one ear
close to the door . Close the other ear with your hand and listen to i. Can you
hear Dharmendra ‘s voice ?” said my friend Kuldeep Machama.
“Yes,” said I .
That is how during our
college days we would listen to the dialogues of actors from the roadside gate
of Palladium cinema, Lal Chowk. 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 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, fried
fish Reddis, 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.
Later during my banking career, I
came to know the proprietors as well. They were liberal in giving passes for
the gallery when demanded. They would visit the bank to purchase bank drafts
generally favouring ' Elora Films, Jalandhar ' , possibly a distribution house
for northern India.
I have seen late-night shows
with men throwing burning cigarette bits to the screen like missiles. Some
times someone would cry, “ Soruf! Soruf! or Snake! Snake! ”. Some times someone
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 the 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.
The cinema was in the heart of the
city or one could say privy to many events that shaped the history of Kashmir
since the early forties of the last century. I have seen a photograph of 1945
wherein Sheikh Mohd Abdullah and Bakshi Ghulam Mohd are shown addressing a
public gathering at Lal Chowk exactly in front of this cinema hall.
Mun tu shudam tu mun shudi,mun tun
shudam tu jaan shudi
Taakas na guyad baad azeen,
mun deegaram tu deegari
( Amir Khusro )
I have become you, and you
me,
I am the body, you soul;
So that no one can say
hereafter,
That you are someone, and me
someone else.
This is the Persian couplet
with which Sheikh Mohd Abdullah welcomed Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru in a mammoth
gathering at Lal Chowk Srinagar in 1947. Those who came to listen to these
leaders say that the dais for this gathering was just opposite Palladium cinema
in Lal Chowk.
Bhai Anant Singh Gauri (a
philanthropic Sikh gentleman) brought cinema to the Kashmir valley by opening
the Palladium Talkies at Lal Chowk, Srinagar sometime in 1932. Ardeshir Irani’s
Alam-Ara was the first movie screened in this hall. When Sher e Kashmir
Institute of Medical Sciences was set up at Soura, Srinagar, Bhai Anant Singh
donated more than 50 Kanals of land for this premier medical centre in Kashmir
valley. Bhai Anant Singh kept his cinema hall at the disposal of the National
Militia or Peace Brigade cadres of Kashmir after the tribal raid of 1947. During
that period, the cinema hall also became the headquarter of the emergency
administration headed by Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah.
( Present condition of the cinema Hall .Even this structure is being demolished )
The story of cinema in Kashmir is
the story of this hall. The story of cinema crowd management in Kashmir could
well be the story of Mohammad Ismail.
Mohammad Ismail was on the
payrolls of Palladium cinema, Lal Chowk. He was well built and would be seen
outside the entrance to the third-class ticket window or sometimes near the
stall window. Many people believed him to be working for the black marketeers
of cinema tickets known as ‘ Blackers ’. He would pull out his cane or leather
belt and create terror outside the ticket windows by his unique style of crowd
management. Sometime in 1981or 1982, I was told by the nearby Chaurasia Paan
shop owner something like this:-
“ Mohammad Ismail is a
clever dramabaaz. The ticket ' Blackers " are his agents or vice versa.
They work for each other’s interests. The moment any blacker notices some
gentle family coming near the ticket window, he cries, ‘ Aaayi ha Bobu Ji ta
Khoja Sahib ’ or ‘ People from gentle or respectable Pandit and Muslim families
have come’. And Ismala (as he was known fondly ) immediately makes noise and
charges upon crowds near the ticket windows with his cane or belt. The gentle
Pandit and Muslim family ticket buyers get frightened and move away from the
ticket windows. At this moment the black marketeers of tickets come out with
bundles of tickets and sell them to the respectable and frightened people at a
premium. This is all done in connivance. The police, the owners and the
employees know everything about this activity .”
Sometimes Mohammad Ismail was seen
with the film advertisement band that would start from the Palladium around
9.30 AM with posters, hoardings and a proper Band Baaja. Kashmiri painters
advertised the new movie with their innovative sentences written artistically.
Sentences like ‘ Ek naagin talwaar chalaane mei maahir ’ or ‘
Gaanv ki bholi ladki aur shahar ka jadoogar ’ or ‘ Maum ki gudiya ki aag se
takkar ’ or ‘ Ladaai aur maar kutaayi se
bhar-poor ’ or ‘ Ek Ladki do deewane ’. The
bandmaster and bagpipers played music to the amusement of the onlookers on the
road. The bandmaster known as Rajab Sahib ( Mohammad Rajab ) would lead this
parade to advertise a new movie. This strange group carried hoardings as they
moved through the streets of the city playing music. The advertisement system
later changed to hiring Tonga and making rounds in the city with posters and
hoardings.
The historic Palladium cinema of
Srinagar is now a heap of debris. Burnt and destroyed during armed militancy
that visited Kashmir in 1990. 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 the glory of this cinema hall. Time has to move forward. It can not stop
for sentiments. Sentiments are of no value in this market-driven and
utility-oriented society.
( Avtar Mota )
Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.