The Traveling Cinemas of Incredible India
Forty-five year old Ganesh, a construction worker sits on his haunches, smoking a beedi and watching his favourite Bollywood star bash up the bad guys to rescue the maiden in distress. Earning just Rs.75 (£1) per day, the few hours of Hindi cinema every Wednesday is the only form of entertainment he is accustomed to. Soon, he could be deprived of even that, for most of his friends have switched to more modern forms of entertainment, such as cable TVs. The makeshift tent is almost empty, except for a few who have decided to get drunk for the occasion.
Traveling cinemas that provided the residents of rural India the much sought after movie watching experience for over 60 years are fading away by the day, as a result of television and bootleg DVDs. Such cinemas offered entertainment for as low as 20 pennies, while the multiplexes in the modern cities costed much higher. For a traveling cinema, all the world’s a stage – football fields, tea estates, festival grounds, cricket grounds – you name it.
“This is a dying form of business, and if nothing is done with that then if it dies down it will be history” says Ajay Sarpotdar, head of an establishment that represents the traveling cinemas of Maharashtra, a state on the western coast of India. There are just about 40 such cinemas in the state, which had over 2,000 thirty to forty years ago, according to Mr Sarpotdar.
Documentary makers Amit Madheshiya and Shirley Abraham have documented the few existent nomadic cinemas in the rural areas of Maharashtra as part of a project funded by the Indian Foundation of the Arts. Pramod Jain, the manager of Kalpana Touring Talkies says that he screens just 18-20 movies per month presently when a few years ago he screened 70-80 movies on the various tea estates surrounding Assam and West Bengal.
Imagine watching a romantic flick on a drizzly evening under a marquee with the air thick with the fragrance of earth, the day’s sweat, the rare snack of onions fried in batter and a faraway jasmine bush in full bloom – wouldn’t it be an experience to cherish? “I remember watching a thriller one night” recalls 80 year old Basu. “It had just rained and we were all shivering. The ghostly calls from the movie and the feel of my neighbour’s shivers across my side are fresh in my memory.” “I do miss them.” he adds on a nostalgic note.
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