APROPOS of Peerzada Salman’s column ‘When art imitates life’ (July 30), which was based on the cinema houses recently burnt down by wild mobs agitating against a blasphemous film produced by an American citizen.
When tracing the history of Nishat Cinema, the wtiter has quoted film historian and journalist Shahinshah Hussain as to say that “according to the record that I have, Nishat started to run films in 1949. I don’t know when it was built. In 1949 Fatima Jinnah inaugurated the cinema and the first film which was shown here was ‘Doli’ (Indian movie)…”
In the same article at another place he writes: “Nishat Cinema Director Nawab Hasan Siddiq believes the cinema was inaugurated on Dec 25, 1947, by Fatima Jinnah”.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to inform readers that Nishat is a British-era picture house and its original name was Krishna Cinema. In fact, its original owner had two cinema houses, viz Radha and Krishna, both located on Bunder Road, opposite each other. As a matter of fact, Krishna was his son and Radha was the name of his beloved daughter, so he chose to name both his cinema houses after his son and daughter.
After the partition when Hindus left for India, the above-mentioned cinema houses were declared evacuee properties. They were given to new owners who, in turn, renamed them. Hence Radha became Naz Cinema and Krishna renamed Nishat.
G. M. DILMURAD BALOCH Karachi
