First day, first show: Kashmir keeps its date with the movies

Though safety concerns affected turnout, those who experienced the magic of the big screen say it’s kindled new hope

- Mohua Das

The lights dimmed, the projector cast its smoky white beam and for the first time in 33 years, friends and families in Kashmir found themselves united over popcorn and cola looking up at a ginormous screen to gaze at an oversized Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan sweeping them up into a dream of what life in Kashmir once was and what it once again could be.

It was a coup of sorts in a land where this simple act of pleasure was impossible until even a week ago as Kashmir’s cinema halls were forced to abide by a 1989 diktat from a militant outfit forbidding outings at movie theatres.

The first day, first show at Kashmir’s first multiplex — after it opened up for its commercial run on Saturday morning — didn’t quite set the box office registers ringing. Just about 20 film enthusiasts trickled into the heavily guarded four-storey entertainment complex in Srinagar’s tranquil Badami Bagh cantonment where a guest house was razed to make way for the three-screen, 520-seater ‘Myoun INOX Cinema’. The name plays on the Kashmiri word ‘myon’ meaning ‘my own’.

“I don’t think more than 100 people will turn up over the first two days… this is Kashmir after all,” says Vikas Dhar, who along with his father Vijay Dhar — owner of the now defunct Broadway cinema hall in Srinagar — partnered with INOX to “reintroduce cinema to Kashmiris.”