Bafflingly it’s been closed for several months. Here’s rewinding to the Eros cinema that was
Khalid Mohamed (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 23, 2018)

The Man Hunts the Girl. The Girl Hunts the Man.

That catchy tagline of the thriller, To Chase A Crooked Shadow, commanded housefulls for months at Mumbai’s Eros cinema back in 1958.

Now 60 years down, the Eros is a Ghost Paradiso. Its tall, hard metal carved gates have been padlocked for months, if not for over a year — a closure which has gone unheeded and unmourned.

After all, who has the time to care about a grand forlorn structure, bang opposite the city’s commuteremitting Churchgate railway station? In the name of redevelopment in the Maximum Metropolis, who cares for must-dekkos in the art-deco landmark anymore?

The story of Eros — either inadvertently or tantalisingly named after the Greek god of love, implying sexual desire and yearning — is way more complicated than any dysfunctional family plot. All I can figure is that on January 19, last year, the Cambata building which houses the cinema was closed down following contentious labour issues. The next day, it re-opened, chugged along for a while, and then went pffft. Not news, it happens. In any case, burly security guards on being badgered, looked at me as if I was from some fringe group, out to spark trouble. Exit, information seeker.

Questions nagged: If Eros is on the cusp of renovation or takeover by a multiplex baron, how come there isn’t a shadow of such intent on the spot? Could the God of Love become a Mall of Branded Goodies perchance?

Out out paranoia. Desist! Keep out of the legal parameters. Just stroll over to the nearby Inox ‘plex or better still, to the good ‘ol Regal. If not, go back to your memory files and relish the feel great times at L’Eros when Mumbai was Bombay, when cinema meant rapture and enchantment, be it in the stalls, dress circle or balcony.

The first two rows right before the screen, covered by a velvety curtain before the show commenced, were 10 annas a ticket. I avoided the pits, simply because the faces looked more distorted than reflections on a carnival’s funny mirror.

The stalls were where it’s at, the middle M and N rows perfect for the sound acoustics. Ears had to be alert to grasp the rat-a-rat American English dialogue. Or it had to be the balcony’s front row, to avoid craning my neck so as to see every millimetre of the screen. If it was the second or third row, I’d been cursed infallibly to sit right behind the tallest man, woman or child in the world. The A row, balcony, was the coolest.

I’d like to believe it’s not that simple thing called nostalgia which prompts me to reel back to the magic kingdom that was at Churchgate. It was built in 1938 (note: I’m not that old, I wasn’t there for its opening). As in love, there’s always the first time. For me that was a weekend treat to see the six-packed Burt Lancaster do his swashbuckling act in Crimson Pirate. It was premiered in India years after it became a rage with the kids in the US. The technicolour film was joyous, action-packed, fantasy-come-true but there was a kind of unhappy ending. Farrokh, my neighbourhood gang’s Tom Sawyer behavea-like sprinted down the curved marble straircase right into the transparent exit door. Result: a nasty bump on his head.

Over time, there were the wowie westerns (aah, Rio Bravo and Cheyenne Autumn), musicals (sigh, My Fair Lady), comedies (‘ol blueeyes Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack), tearjerkers (sniff, The Heart is A Lonely Hunter). Incidentally, one of the longest stayers at Eros, was the sex-on-the-rocks, strictly for adults only Blow Hot Blow Cold which I had to crash into, courtesy an eyebrow pencilled smudge of a moustache. The marathon-runner was the ultimate date flick Pretty Woman. Julia Roberts flossed her teeth, can’t remember if Richard Gere did.

A total Eros recall isn’t doable, I could go yawn nauseam. Truly, I don’t know whether I will see it the way it was with its vintage soda fountains and the unforgettable studio portraits of Audrey Hepburn, Paul Newman and more. Curiously, though, a classic portrait was suddenly replaced by a frame of Urmila Matondkar. That could be leftover publicity material from Rangeela which had opened at the Eros. Maybe.

For the longest while, films distributed by Warner Bros in India would be exclusively released there. A Hindi film would pop up occasionally. Example: the roll-in-the-aisles comedy Pyar Kiye Jaa. Eventually, Bollywood ruled. Old-timer exhibitors would know why the shiftover. Lagaan played at the Eros, practically every film has since the ‘90s, separate films at separate shows.

To date the Man Hunts the Girl, the Girl Hunts the Man at the movies. And something tells me that all movie lovers of the city will keep hunting for the return of Eros.