Srinagar: Cinema and Kashmir have shared an uneasy relationship for several decades. But now there’s change in the air— and on the ground.

Hollywood writer-director Christopher Nolan’s latest opus, ‘Oppenheimer’, is drawing youngsters in droves and running to packed shows at Srinagar’s INOX facility. All shows on Sunday are already booked. And the collections here could surpass Shah Rukh Khan’s blockbuster, ‘Pathaan’!

INOX owner Vikas Dhar said that many youngsters from across the Valley started enquiring about the movie on social media as long as a month before its release. “We had promised them that the film will be out (in Srinagar) on the day of its worldwide release,” Dhar said.

Cinema returned to the strife-torn Valley barely a year ago after decades of shutdown due to terrorism. Srinagar’s INOX was the first to get off the blocks last September, followed by two cinemas in south Kashmir’s Shopian and Pulwama districts. Last week, two more came up in north Kashmir’s Baramulla and Handwara. Ganderbal, Bandipora and Kulgam will join the list by September.

Kashmiris were forced out of cinema halls following diktats from terrorists in 1990. Three cinemas—Broadway, Neelam and Regal—reopened in 1999. But on the first day of Regal’s reopening, grenades were hurled at viewers coming out of the theatre. One person died. Soon, the theatres morphed into paramilitary barracks, malls, hospitals and ruins.

LG Manoj Sinha has promised to open theatres in every district. The return of cinema is part of the engagement initiatives of the J&K administration. Article 370, which gave Jammu and Kashmir special status, was revoked by the Centre in August 2019.

The rush at INOX, which seats 220, underlines a craving for the movies. IT engineer Saaqib Iqbal and doctor Falak tried to buy a ticket but the shows were full. Civil engineer Khalid Mir was enthusiastic about watching the movie but, like many others, wasn’t lucky to get a first-day ticket. “I had not expected such a rush for this movie in Srinagar,” he said.

‘Oppenheimer’s’ success demonstrates the Kashmiris’ evolving taste in cinema. Movie lovers from across the Valley are making advance bookings, Dhar said.

The lights dimmed, the projector cast its smoky white beam and for the first time in 33 years, friends and families in Kashmir found themselves united over popcorn and cola looking up at a ginormous screen to gaze at an oversized Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan sweeping them up into a dream of what life in Kashmir once was and what it once again could be.

It was a coup of sorts in a land where this simple act of pleasure was impossible until even a week ago as Kashmir’s cinema halls were forced to abide by a 1989 diktat from a militant outfit forbidding outings at movie theatres.

The first day, first show at Kashmir’s first multiplex — after it opened up for its commercial run on Saturday morning — didn’t quite set the box office registers ringing. Just about 20 film enthusiasts trickled into the heavily guarded four-storey entertainment complex in Srinagar’s tranquil Badami Bagh cantonment where a guest house was razed to make way for the three-screen, 520-seater ‘Myoun INOX Cinema’. The name plays on the Kashmiri word ‘myon’ meaning ‘my own’.

“I don’t think more than 100 people will turn up over the first two days… this is Kashmir after all,” says Vikas Dhar, who along with his father Vijay Dhar — owner of the now defunct Broadway cinema hall in Srinagar — partnered with INOX to “reintroduce cinema to Kashmiris.”

With his eyes on ticket windows and last-minute trial runs, he says with a laugh: “Around 13 seats have sold till now for the morning show of Vikram Vedha. I think my daughters will have to fill up the halls.”

But he wasn’t complaining. In Kashmir’s strife-torn state where films were declared “un-Islamic” and nearly a dozen standalone cinema halls were forced to shut in the nineties, Vikas is happy that Kashmiris can once again enjoy the novelty of being in a movie theatre. Some after 30-odd years and some for the very first time.

“See, if we were business-minded we wouldn’t have set up a cinema. For us this was born out of a passion. Even if five people come and watch a movie on the first day, our dream of showing Kashmir the big screen would have come true,” he says, cautiously optimistic that more people would turn up eventually.

Even though the turnout was small, there was no lack of enthusiasm. Faheem Khan, a 19-year-old vlogger from the Kamarwadi area of Srinagar, channelled the emotions of the day. “I drove for nine hours to Jammu recently to watch Brahmastra. It’s almost unbelievable that Kashmir has a multiplex now. It shows that Kashmir is progressing and gives teenagers like me hope that more such places will open now.”

It was “a joyous moment” for Arjamand Khurshid, a school teacher from Zaffron Colony, never mind the two rounds of frisking she had to clear to enter a cinema hall after a 30-year pause. “With decades of conflict, the 2014 floods and Covid-19 we’ve been living like dead souls. How many times can you go to the Mughal gardens for a picnic? This feels like a fresh breath. A Kashmir away from Kashmir,” she smiles, marvelling at the facade of the modern-day movie house with its carved wood Khatamband ceilings and hand-painted Kashmiri papier mache theatre logo that worked like a sentimental reminder of the valley’s charm.

But despite the presence of gun-toting CRPF jawans and J&K police vans across the complex in the morning, the box office shut in the evening due to security concerns.

The shiny new multiplex offers quite a contrast to Srinagar’s old cinemas that have either been re-purposed or stand as ghosts of cinemas past. One can still see Neelam and Shiraz’s jaded marquee over a traffic-clogged roundabout in Srinagar’s city centre which now serve as CRPF bunkers. Likewise Palladium in Lal Chowk, Kashmir’s first theatre which opened in 1932, is occupied by paramilitary forces although the edifice has trees growing out of its ruins. Khayam has been through multiple avatars of a playground, a compound for military men to assemble suspects and now a multi-specialty hospital. Regal in the heart of the city is a shopping mall in the making while Broadway houses a bank.

“It was ironic that the last film we showed at Broadway was Yateem (Orphan), a sentiment echoed by our staff when we had to shut,” says Dhar who was one of the many fear-stricken Kashmiri Pandits that left the Valley in 1990 but returned in 1992. Dhar’s Broadway, alongside Neelam and Regal, defied the threats and started screening films in 1999 but not for long. Neelam and Broadway shut down with no one turning up, Regal came under a deadly grenade attack.

“But movies were in my DNA,” says the octogenarian, recalling a phase when he’d make excuses to go to Delhi every weekend to watch films until his family caught him out. Generations thereafter have found themselves in Dhar’s shoes. It wasn’t Areeba Sajjad’s first time at a cinema theatre. “I go out for movies whenever I travel with my family but the idea of hanging out with friends at the movies in my own city is very exciting,” says the 16-year-old.

What was challenging though was putting together the multiplex crew from a generation of Kashmiris deprived of the big screen. “We promised ourselves that all the employment would be local but most of our recruits had never been inside a cinema while 18 of them left after the first hiring. Either because of societal reasons or because they were afraid given the history,” says Dhar.

Ishrat Rasool, a 23-year-old working as a security guard, admits she had no idea of what a cinema hall was until he took this job. “Everything was so big and loud, my heart started racing,” smiles Ishrat who hasn’t mustered the courage to tell her parents about working in a hall. “They are scared but I need to earn.”

For Kashmiri film and television producer Mushtaaque Ali Khan, watching people streaming into the multiplex brought back poignant memories of movie outings — the women in silk and the men in well-cut suits — munching on kebab and naan during the interval and walking home in the wee hours of the night. “The 7 pm show was always in English and interestingly many patrons weren’t even well versed with the language. They’d even make up their own stories. Yet Hollywood was a craze because of the exposure it offered.”

As the revival of a big screen signals a new reality for the state, there’s still unassuaged anger waiting to be resolved. Irfan Masudi, a 35-year-old IT professional, balks at politicians promoting movies while other painful issues remain unaddressed. “It’s a waste of money and an eyewash. I wanted to set up an assembling unit some years ago but couldn’t for the lack of any entrepreneurial assistance. Shouldn’t they be prioritising other development for the youth still struggling for an education, jobs or skills?”

But Adil Nazir, 26 manning the box office, food counter and ushering in guests, captures the aspirations of Kashmiri youths. “I couldn’t study beyond class ten and worked as a painter, salesman, daily wager and was jobless after Covid struck. I am proud that I’m now a part of Kashmir’s historic moment and able to feed my family. ”

Srinagar: Kashmir’s long and rich cinematic history went dark and blank 32 years ago as sweeping diktats from terrorists and fundamentalists shut down cinemas and banned movies, calling any such audio-visual entertainment “haram”—or against the tenets of Islam. But Kashmir is making a jump cut in time, as plans are spooling to open Srinagar’s first multiplex this September.

“It’s a three-screen multiplex designed by INOX. It can seat at least 520 patrons, and will have the most advanced Dolby sound system, food courts selling local fare, and other entertainment options,” said Vikas Dhar, the owner.

Fries and popcorn may meld with the wazwan, the delectable Kashmiri multi-cuisine, and modern acoustic sidings will blend with a papiermâché and khatamband ceiling, with wooden chips arranged geometrically into a motif.

The idea is to give the young the entertainment their peers enjoy outside Kashmir, said Vijay Dhar, Vikas’s father. “This is for everybody. Our youth should be happy. They can watch 3D movies. They need to scream and shout. Except sports and food, there is no place now where one can get a dose of entertainment,” he said, and thanked the Centre and the J&K government for their help.

This is a far cry from that fateful day when 19 cinemas in Srinagar, Anantnag, Baramulla, Sopore, Handwara and Kupwara were shut down “by order” from the banned JKLF and Hizbul Mujahedeen terrorists on January 1, 1990. Some relics of the past still exist, but not in the form they are intended to be.

The iconic Palladium Cinema’s burnt-out skeleton stands still in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk as a grim reminder of the theatre of the absurd unleashed three decades ago. Many abandoned movie halls became “camps” for security forces. Some were converted into private nursing homes and shopping malls.

Attempts were made earlier too to revive cinemas in Kashmir—a picture-postcard place that has been a muse of filmmakers for long. In 1999, then CM Farooq Abdullah tried to reopen cinemas, announcing a cash subsidy for theatre owners. A few cinemas like Neelam, Regal and Broadway opened, but the attempt failed. Terrorists set off grenades inside Regal and Neelam, shutting down all those who dared.

Another attempt was nipped in the bud too. Then CM Mehbooba Mufti, who was helming a PDP-BJP coalition government, welcomed Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s decision to reopen movie theatres in his kingdom. But Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani shot it down with a strong statement against Saudi Arabia’s decision.