“ Adikari vandurkaar (An official has come). Open the theatre,” says a bare-chested man, pulling incessantly at the gates, as he signals me to wait. He’s inebriated and thinks that anyone in formal attire is an ‘important official.’
I’m outside Batcha Theatre (formerly Minerva Theatre), once a hub in George Town for English films. This is said to be the first theatre in the city to have been air-conditioned but today, there’s no AC. There’s just a strong breeze flowing into the verandah on the first floor, which is where the screen is located.
Is there a balcony section, I wonder. “Full theatre is balcony only,” beams Batcha, who runs it now, as he gets ready for the evening show in the theatre that’s actually located on the first floor.
They’re screening the Sarath Kumar-starrer Paatali currently. Who’d come for a film that released in 1999 and has subsequently been telecast many times on TV, I wonder.
But, 30 minutes before the show, a dozen people gather outside the small, rickety ticket window, waiting for it to open.
There are rickshaw pullers, daily-wage workers and… beggars. “These are the people from the neighbourhood who can’t afford to watch TV,” Batcha explains, as he points out to a scruffy old man sourcing coins from his worn-out lungi , “For them, this is a luxury. It gives them a peek into a different life.”
Things would’ve been different had you been in Richardson Street, where the theatre is located, half a century ago. You’d perhaps be watching an English film with people who’ll form, at that point of time, part of ‘class audiences.’
“I’ve watched many English films here,” recalls Kesavan, who runs a godown on the street. Hailing from Andhra Pradesh, his family shifted to the city four decades ago. Since then, Minerva has been Kesavan’s favourite haunt for his weekly dose of entertainment. “I even remember watching a few Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan’s films here. In fact, Sigappu Rojakkal , which I remember watching when it released, was screened only last week!”
Business isn’t exactly great for Batcha, who took over the theatre a few years ago and re-christened it. But this TV and film artiste is optimistic that the show will go on. “As I’m from the industry, I will not let this theatre close,” he says, “I’ll keep it going as long as it can.”
In a few streets away from there, on the main road, is New Broadway Talkies. The bell rings for the interval, and a handful of people gather to buy popcorn. Balcony tickets here are priced at Rs. 30, almost double that of rates at Batcha. But this theatre, about 80 years old, as a local puts it, is much like Minerva in spirit.
“They screen some new films at times, but mostly, it’s old films,” says Mani, a rickshaw-puller who gazes star-struck at a poster of Vijaykanth in the reception area. The movie they’re screening is not the latest release of Captain (as the actor is fondly referred) by any stretch of imagination — in fact, it is Thenpaandi Seemaiyile that hit screens more than fifteen years ago — but that doesn’t deter fans like Mani.
Old is still not so old-fashioned in this part of the city. For, in this age of online booking and swanky cinema halls, these two George Town survivors, Batcha and New Broadway Talkies, represent everything old — of how movies were seen and experienced in a bygone era.
