KUMAR Talkies doesn’t really fit into the bustling neighbourhood of present-day Napier Road. The turquoise paint on the cinema’s exterior is quite unlike other pre-Partition buildings in the city’s oldest red-light district. Located opposite Dhol Gali and questionable Chinese dentists, over time the cinema’s entrance has been marred by many hoardings asking passers-by to have their eyesight checked or get that root canal they’ve been putting off – in other words, you only know it exists if you’re a regular for the matinee.

The tall gentleman hanging around the ticket stall is the cinema’s manager, Zahid Ali, a former policeman who took over from his father Abid Ali. The latter started working at the cinema as a teenager. After his father’s death in 1989, Ali decided to continue working here in his memory.

“When my father moved here from Raipur in 1949, he was only 17 years old,” he says. “It was expected that he would work at the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) like his father — which he did for a short while — but my father had other plans. He used to come here so often back then that the manager gave him a part-time job. So after class, he would come and spend time here. His mother knew about it but my grandfather was unaware of what my father was up to after 6pm. One day he found out, however, and let my father continue here.”

Ali still manages the cinema with his father’s trusty projector-operator, Ghulam Mustafa, who also worked with Abid Ali at the KMC.

“The cinema is housed in a building that must be at least 150 years old,” says Mustafa while talking to Dawn, adding that the original structure was of pale yellow stone.

It was initially owned by Rati Lal and Jamna Das who used the space to stage dramas in the late 19th century. Since there were no government taxes on entertainment at the time, Lal and Das used to sell tickets themselves. The building was then bought by L.C . Seltani and converted into a cinema named after his youngest son, Kumar. In 1969, this cinema was bought by Aga Ata Mohammad Khan for Rs800,000 and is still owned by the family.

According to Ali, back in the day it used to show silent movies with slides to illustrate what the actors were saying. The ticket cost Rs1.5 for the balcony and 0.37paisas for the third-class section. The cinema also became known for its repeat-run shows.

The cinema has screened some famous films such as Sajani, Aik Tha Raja, the 1965 Sanjeev Kumar starrer Nishaan, Geeta Bali’s Neelam Pari (1952) and 1948’s Tamil adventure Chandralekha. The Madras-based Gemini productions’ (now Gemini Studios) Chandralekha held the record for the largest audience at Kumar which has a single screen and more than 600 seats.

In 1979, they started screening English movies. Abid Ali, Ali’s father, was by this time running the full show at Kumar.

“I remember him getting dressed for work every day in a white suit, a scarf around his neck,” Ali reminisces. “He used to spray the Corolla with fancy perfume. He looked like a movie star to me. He was a very simple man with elegant tastes. He used to love Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan. When he was sick he would ask me to bring him his friend Amitabh’s films for the VCR.”

“My siblings don’t feel the same way about this place,” continues Ali. “It holds so many memories for me. I remember the first time my father let me come here to watch a movie and had me sit in the balcony. I came here to watch Aadil, 1964’s best film Ghaddar, Akhri Chattan from the 1970s, and Kala Pani.

Today, the cinema shows B-grade English movies (mostly action) for Rs100 every day in the afternoon and is open only to men. The turnout is low — maybe 100 to 150 people per show — but it is enough to sustain the talkies.

“Mohammad Ali and Saloni’s 1966 film Aadil did very well at the cinema,” Ali remembers. “We used to show it every Eid. My father used to be ecstatic that he had a house full every Eid with people lining up on the street outside for tickets for the next show. Today, people come here to just pass time. We start a show at 3pm and it usually goes on for an hour and a half or two.”

Notwithstanding the building’s dilapidated state, the cinema’s manager and its caretakers take very good care of Kumar’s ancient projectors and equipment. Ali shows me a carbon-operated machine that he says was made in Lahore. “You won’t find these anywhere now,” he says proudly. “It’s a miracle they’ve survived here as long as they have.”

Holding on to his father’s one true love, the silver screen, has been hard on Ali given the increasing number of cinemas in the city, DVDs, Netflix and torrent downloads. “I hope to continue with this for as long as I can,” he says though, as he starts preparing for the next day’s show.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2018