KASUR, Aug 6: At Partition, there stood four cinemas in the Kasur city to spice up the lives of people of the city. The city was relatively smaller than that of the today’s Kasur. Today there is no cinema in the city and the remains of last Naz Cinema at Baldia Chowk await demolition.

When Pakistan was born in 1947, there were Majestic Cinema, Habib Mahal Cinema, Noor Mehal Cinema and Naz Cinema in the city.

Veteran cinegoers told Dawn that every show in those cinemas would go full in the 50s. Viewing popularity of films, these cinemas were constructed along modern lines in the early 60s. Those were the days when cine buffs would buy tickets in black.

The first house that gave in to commercialisation was Majestic Cinema that was demolished to construct a shopping plaza in 1980. In 1982, Habib Mahal Cinema followed suit and was replaced with houses. After a few years, Naz Cinema was closed and reopened after seven to eight years. In the early 2000, the cinema was again closed. Later, its owner decided to replace it with a hosing society. Now, the land of the cinema has been converted into plots and sold and many newly-built houses have popped up around the old cinema hall.

Among those four cinemas, Noor Mahal Cinema, however, continued braving all odds and functioned till 2002 when its owner sold it to another man. The new master turned it into a theatre hall and renamed it as Khan Mahal. The theatre was sealed for a number of times on public complaints for showing ‘obnoxious’ plays. The last time it was sealed six months ago and there is a little hope of its reopening now.

The owner says the number of drama viewers has gone down and it is hard to meet heavy expenditures of electricity bills and wages of artists and other workers. A major part of the theatre has been turned into a shopping plaza.

The downfall of cinematic era is not just confined to Kasur. The nearby city of Bhai Pheru has seen the closure of Ittefaq Cinema while Naseem Mahal Cinema in Pattoki has also been closed.

Naz Cinema’s owner Sheikh Allaha Wasaya says cinema owners have to pay a heavy price to run the business but the turnout is not as much as it should be. He says they buy films from producers at costly rates besides paying electricity bills and salaries to the staff. After investing heavily, most of the time films receive lacklustre response from the public. He said cinema owners could not afford selling tickets at cheap rates while the cine buffs were mostly labourers who wanted tickets at cheap rates. He said most of the cinema halls were in a shambles because the owners never earned enough money to improve the furniture and other facilities.

When asked what measures could help revive cinemas, he said besides waiving taxes, the government should minimise the interference of its employees in cinematic business.

Cine lovers, including Sajjad Ansari, Babu Asghar Ali, Khalid Hussain and Sohail Ahmed, say allowing screening of Indian movies in Pakistani cinemas can help revive cinema houses. They wanted the government to encourage parties with sound financial conditions, including foreign investors, to invest in cinema business so that good quality movies can be brought to the cinema houses. But their opinion was opposed by people from religious parties. Dr Usman Ghani of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam said that the Indian films would damage our culture. He said the statement of an Indian statesman that “we have conquered Pakistan not through wars but through our culture” was spit on our face.