Flashback with Mumbai's first cinema halls

The soul of a city lies in its past In the answer to the question What happened here This answer lies with the witnesses that have stood the test of time ripened and thickened with stories in their wrinkles Perhaps there is no history of Mumbai that can be written without writing about cinema that which gives it the ambivalent distinction of being the city of dreamsThe leap of imagination images in motion set off this dream in this city over a hundred years ago in 1913 The Indian journey with the reel found its first landmark with an informal screening of the first Indian silent film Raja Harishchandra by Dhundiraj Govind PhalkeOlympia Cinematograph where Raja Harishchandra was screened for the first time stood near Chandaramji School near Dubashwadi in Sikkanagar Girgaum Pics Bipin Kokate On the cine trailThe remains of those days were what we set out to find Raja Harishchandra was screened for the first time at Olympia Cinematograph in Girgaum for friends and family on April 21 and then officially on May 3 at Coronation Cinematograph and Variety Hall What do those places look like now Armed with addresses and names from a hundred years ago from archives of newspapers like the then existing Bombay Chronicle and advertisements dug out by historian Rafique Baghdadi the hunt began on a sultry April morningThe Sandhurst Road confluence where Coronation stood This building that stands opposite Cosmopolitan Restaurant near Prarthana Samaj Girgaum was built five years after the screening At the onset Baghdadi informed that the screening of Raja Harishchandra is closely linked to the arrival of a road in 1910 which in a way brought cinema to Mumbai The Sandhurst Road which is now a railway station stretched from Girgaum Chowpatty to Dongri and soon housed many thriving theatres on it including Olympia and Coronation and also AmericanIndia and The New Alhambra ldquoThe major part of the exploration will be on this road Though a lot of it is now called by different names We also have to keep in mind that earlier addresses were less complex than they are now Like phone numbers were even single digitrdquo he explained as we were swaying between optimism and pessimism about finding anythingMajestic cinema has now become a shoppinng complex and stands near Girgaum ChurchldquoEach of these theatres have interesting storiesrdquo he went on ldquoAmericanIndia owned by PB Mehta were the first to use the advanced cinematograph and were the first to run fans in the cinema hallrdquo Given our climatic conditions and the closed halls it must have been a remarkable progress in the cinema watching experience possibly comparable to the arrival of online bookingCosmopolitan restaurant in pic that stands near Hurkison Das Hospital and Prarthana Samaj Girgaum Coronation Cinematorgraph stood here on Sandhurst RoadThe first stop was Majestic near Khotachiwadi It wasnrsquot difficult to locate with the name floating around like the disproportionate names of people Majestic Shopping Centre other places in the area with Majestic arbitrarily written on it shy with memories of flamboyancePublicity poster of Raja Harishchandra Not pricking the hurt anymore we moved forward to Girgaum Church St Theresarsquos the once competitor of IndiaAmerica Cinematograph as the landmark of the area We walked the area asking if anyone had ever heard of this theatre especially the older shops hoping to land a story a greatgrandfather told a father Nothing If only the church could speakThe Girgaon Court near Sandhurst Road where Coronation stood Dilip Kumar had proposed to Madhubala hereNext we headed to the junction of Sandhurst Road and Khetwadi Road and found a building that came up in 1917 as proclaimed on its wall This was the area of Coronation Baghdadi said ldquoInterestingly the four legendary theatres lasted from 1910 to 1917rdquo The other witness to the cinema the Cosmopolitan Restaurant stood in all its glory with marble tables and summer day reverie Coronation said Baghdadi was also used for other shows like dance by Miss Irene Delmar comical sketches like The McClements and food jugglery shows by AlexandroffRafique Baghdadi on the cinema exploration walk New Alhambra once stood at Memonwada in DongriHe then brought out more treasures from the chest of history ldquoOn the day of the screening of Raja Harishchandra there was a show by Ms Gauhar Jaan elsewhere in the city with tickets priced at R5 And on that day there was an advertisement in newspapers for the best Bombay mangoes and Godrej safesrdquo he says making us wonder that for some brands a 100 years was not really that long agoThe road near Girgaum church that connects Prarthana Samaj where AmericanIndia cinematograph once stood PICSBipin Kokate Our next hunt was a tricky one We went out looking for Dubash lane which few people seemed to know but luckily they knew Chandaramji High School established a few years before Olympia CinematographOur final stop was to locate New Alhambra that took us to Dongri which took around 20 minutes Here at the opening of Memonwada a theatre once stood that brought to the city cinema from all over the world All that stood there now were buildings some which were being brought down and some beautiful old houses with slanting roofs from which several pigeons fly aflutter to lead us to the soul in cracks of concrete