The Hindu : New Delhi News : Last day last show at Chanakya

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 29, 2007
ePaper

New Delhi

New Delhi

Last day last show at Chanakya

Staff Reporter

The Capital’s love affair with the grand old theatre comes to a sad end

NEW DELHI: The screening of the 9-45 p.m. show of “Taare Zameen Par” at Chanakya cinema here has marked the end of the Capital’s love affair with the 37-year-old theatre in Chanakyapuri.

The decision to vacate the hall premises by December 31 comes in the wake of a Supreme Court judgment paving the way for the New Delhi Municipal Council to raze the theatre complex and build a multiplex-cum-mall on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis.

A Chanakya theatre employee, Ajay Verma, said: “I have worked here for the past 12 years and have become extremely attached to it. The closure is an emotional farewell for all of us who have worked here and dedicated our lives to it.”

Built in 1970, the first movie to be screened at the theatre was Raj Kapoor’s “Mera Naam Joker” on December 17, 1970. Ever since, the tenants of the theatre complex have been the father-son duo of Rajesh Khanna and Aditya Khanna who have been instrumental in making the movie experience worthwhile for several generations of the Capital’s cinema-goers.

Anupam Gupta, a frequent visitor to the cinema hall, recounted: “I first visited the hall in the mid-1990s for the screening of the film “Gupt”. Even though I had already watched the film, I went to Chanakya just to experience the movie’s songs through the theatre’s state-of-the-art sound system back then.”

Another Chanakya patron, Gautam Tewari, said: “It would be great if the new multiplex retains the name for nostalgic value. That way the place will seem the same but will be put up in a new form.”

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi