Srinagar, Sep 6: Ahmad Hamad, a movie buff, has never been to a cinema as all the cinema halls in Kashmir were closed before he was born. “I’ve never been to a cinema hall in Kashmir,” Ahmad says. It was only four years ago that Kashmir got its first-ever multiplex, INOX, with a special screening of Aamir Khan-starrer ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’. Cinemas in Kashmir had been closed down on December 31, 1990, after militant group ‘Allah Tigers’ issued a diktat for the closure of all cinema halls and liquor shops.
In the pre-1989 era, cinemas were popular in Kashmir, and people loved to watch Bollywood flicks and occasional Hollywood movies.
Cinema halls dotted the entire Kashmir landscape. Srinagar boasted over a dozen cinema halls – Neelam at the back of the civil secretariat, Palladium and Regal in the city centre, Naaz near Iqbal Park, and Shah, Firdaus, Khayam, and Sheraz in downtown. Other smaller towns of Kashmir also had their share of cinema halls – Hewaan in south Kashmir’s Anantnag town, Thimaya in north Kashmir’s Baramulla town, and Samad Talkies and Kapra in Kashmir’s famous apple town, Sopore.
However, when militancy erupted in 1989, people in the business of running cinema halls had to face the brunt, and all cinema houses were closed.
Most of these cinema halls were converted into garrisons housing Army personnel and paramilitary BSF and CRPF personnel, while others were run down with the passage of time. With the closure of cinema halls, the cinema culture also disappeared in Kashmir.
Thirty-seven years since, Kashmiri youth continue to love movies but, with OTT platforms at their disposal, they are not complaining about cinemas any more.
“Our elder generations only used to watch Bollywood flicks but, with the absence of cinemas, my generation sees Hollywood, Iranian, Spanish, French, and Italian cinema too,” says 19-year-old journalism undergrad Mariya Mushtaq. “Our generation watches movies on Netflix as well as other OTT platforms.”
Cinemas in Kashmir also played a role in stoking militancy in the region.
Those who entered Regal Cinema to watch the Libyan historical action film ‘Lion of the Desert’ as carefree youngsters came out as angry men, drawing parallels between the protagonist of the movie, Omar Mukhtar, and National Conference (NC) founder, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, accusing Abdullah of letting people down.
Years later, Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor featured in Vishal Bharadwaj’s movie ‘Haider’, in which he played the role of the protagonis, a militant.
Strangely, Kashmiri youth did not get the opportunity to watch ‘Haider’ in cinemas in the Valley.
With show business off, out-of-business cinema halls like Sheraz and Firdaus have either been converted into homes for contingents of paramilitary forces or fallen to arson, like Palladium, which continues to remain in ruins.
Though attempts were made to reopen cinemas in Kashmir with the opening of Broadway in 1997 in the high-security zone near the Army’s Badamwari cantonment, the process remained a non-starter. Due to security reasons and militant threats, Broadway, as well as Neelam, which reopened soon after, did not attract many cine-goers. Regal was one more cinema hall in Kashmir that tried to resume its business, but on the first day of reopening, the second show had to be abandoned after a grenade attack.
Broadway, too, was closed again in 2005, and Neelam followed suit. While many Bollywood movies like ‘Haider’, ‘Highway’, ‘YehJawaaniHaiDeewani’, ‘Jab TakHaiJaan’, ‘Student of the Year’, ‘SaatKhoonMaaf’, ‘Rockstar’, ‘Mission Kashmir’, ‘Yahaan’, ‘Lamhaa’, ‘Jaanwar’, ‘Junglee’, ‘Kashmir Ki Kali’, ‘Roja’, ‘Jab JabPhoolKhile’, ‘Silsila’, ‘Shaurya’, ‘Tahaan’, ‘Sikander’, ‘KabhiKabhie’, ‘Lakshya’ and ‘Dil Se’ were shot in Kashmir, the cinemas continue to be in a no-revival mode.
INOX remains an exception.
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