While Nishat Cinema
While Nishat Cinema Pakistan’s industry lost its golden goose
KARACHI:
It seems that only our grandparents will now remember why Karachi was christened the City of Lights. The beautifully adorned billboards on main Bandar Road and Keamari were once decorated with larger than life posters of film stars; the fairy lights around the borders were part of the panorama that earned Karachi its quintessential name.
It has been a protracted time since the previous cinemas of town were that refulgent. After the hustle and bustle at Karachi’s old movie theatres died down gradually over the years, last Friday they were torched to ashes by unruly crowds.
While Nishat Cinema was the primary, cinemas patrician, Capri and Bambino soon became household names. Widely popular films including the Urdu rendition of Guns of Navarone as Noorudin ki Bandooq were screened in these theatres. Golden anniversary successes like Aina additionally unbroken audiences charmed. The young and old of the ‘60s and ‘70s have an emotional attachment to these cinema houses; Bambino may have been an attraction due to its charming dancing lady or the primary 70mm screen in Pakistan, however Nishat makes show goers equally unhappy.
It may surprise you, but the amount of money that Nishat generated up until last week was more than any other circuit cinema all over Punjab and Sindh. “Nishat still generates the foremost revenue in Pakistan and is in a very league of its own in circuit cinemas,” Nadeem Mandviwalla, the visionary behind Atrium Cinemas who also has a stake in Nishat told The Express Tribune in an earlier interview.
Nishat was the sole cinema that survived the chain reaction within which several major cinema homes like Rex Cinema (now Rex Centre) were reborn and destroyed once the Pakistani film industry rapidly went downhill. In the early ‘00s, Mandwivalla set to renovate Nishat at a time once there was no hope of any Indian film coming back to the country.
In the recent past, when Cineplex opened at Sea View and began to create a class divide by allowing couples and families only, Nishat remained the only ray of hope for the awaam of Karachi.
“Nishat was one in every of the oldest cinema in Pakistan, but it was its class and peoples’ emotional attachment to it which helped it survive when other cinemas were demolished,” says Rashid Khawaja, the President of the United Producers Association in Pakistan.
“With Nishat and its near cinemas being torched to death, no cinema survives to cater to the needs of the common man, no more films will be made and cinema will now become an elitist medium,” adds Khawaja.
From families to teams of young boys, crowds flocked to Nishat for entertainment. Whether it was for Shahrukh Khan starrer Billo Barber, Shoaib Mansoor’s Khuda Kay Liye or a film such as The Son of Pakistan, there would always be a bustle at the ticket office.
Film-maker Shehzad Rafique wrote concerning his emotional attachment to Nishat Cinema on Facebook. “This place gave me recognition and respect as my films like Nikkah, Rukhsati, Mohabbatan Sachiyan and Salakhain were released here and turned out to be big hits.”
Javed sheik, a well known name in the Pakistani film industry, used to live near Nishat Cinema. He says that last Friday’s destruction was a massive loss. “Even before I had entered the industry, Nishat was an integral part of my childhood. I was lucky enough to measure within the plaza right opposite thereto,” he recalls.
“Chief Saab did record business and reigned for thirty consecutive weeks in Pakistan, with the foremost revenue commencing of Nishat. The government has earned so much from cinemas like Nishat, that now they will have to pay back for its losses,” says Sheikh.
Film-makers and cinema owners may mourn the loss of a piece of Pakistan’s history, but only time will tell whether a vacuum this big can be filled.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 26th, 2012.
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