The End! No More Watching Your Favorite ‘Chitra’ at ‘New Chitra’?

The End! No More Watching Your Favorite ‘Chitra’ at ‘New Chitra’?

The End! No More Watching Your Favorite ‘Chitra’ at ‘New Chitra’? The present managing partners of “New Chitra” talkies- Mangaluru have stopped screening movies since last month- and the decision is yet to be made whether screening of movies will continue or the premises will be used for other business.

Mangaluru: I still remember those days in the 80’s/90’s bunking classes while at St Aloysius College-Mangaluru and going to “New Chitra” talkies to watch Hollywood movies, because it was the only movie theatre screening English films then. I still remember seeing Charles Bronson’s “The Red Sun”; “Five Man Army”; ” The Poseidon Adventure”; “Towering Inferno”; Bruce Lee’s “Enter The Dragon” and “Abba-The Movie” and many others, twice or three times. During then, since Hollywood movies were censored too much, some of the English films were not longer than an hour or so- there were times, the main movie started after the break time- prior to break time a bunch of advertisements and movie trailers were shown- and one of the famous ads was that of Vicco Vajradanthi toothpaste-people of my age would remember this ad if they had patronized ‘New Chitra” during the 80’s and 90’s.

Late Vittaldas Pai K – Founder

Also, this theatre had the best stereophonic sound system, playing top Western/Rock/Pop hits, among the popular ones were “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor or “The Sound Of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel. According to the Pai Brothers who are the present partners of New Chitra said that they used to get LP’s directly from the USA through their sister who lives in Florida-USA. Amazing quality and superb sound from these Long Play Records during those days. ‘New Chitra’ having a seating capacity of around 600 seats ran full houses during popular movies- and the queue to buy the tickets used to spread onto the “New Chitra Junction”, which was named after this theatre for its popularity in that vicinity. The movie ticket prices were around Rs 20-Rs 50 during those days.

K Devadas Pai and K Shanker Pai – Managing Partners

But now sources reveal that “New Chitra” talkies is on the verge of closing down- since a month there have been no shows screened there. Yet another theatre in the City that was closed a couple of months ago was “Platinum Theatre” on Falnir Road-Mangaluru. With all these multiplex cinemas coming up at the malls in the City, moviegoers have been very reluctant in patronizing vintage movie theatres- and being that, with no revenue coming in, the owners have no option than to shut down the business or opt to start a new business in that premises.

Before “New Chitra’ got this name, it was originally named as “Hindustan Cinema” established in the year 1926, which happened to be the first movie theatre in the City, managed by Kochikar Vittaldas Pai from Brahmavar, along with a business partner. In 1936, the theatre was renamed as “Shree Chitra Talkies”, where the Bollywood movie “Mukti” was the First Hindi film to be screened here. Other than Hollywood (English) movies, even Hindi, Tamil movies were screened here. In 1973, the children of Vittaldas Pai renovated the theatre and re-christened it as ‘New Chitra’. Apart from ‘Titanic’ and ‘Enter the Dragon’ which ran full houses for weeks, even a Hindi movie named ‘Sant Jnaneshwar’ broke the record for running full houses.

Presently, “New Chitra” is managed by Pai Brothers namely K Devadas Pai and Shankar Pai brothers, third in the generation of K Vittaldas Pai. Shankar Pai attributed the decision for stopping operation as the crashing of the market, adding that a decision about the theatre would be taken soon. Speaking to Team Mangalorean, the Pai brothers said, “At the moment we have stopped the screening of movies since a month. The renovation is going on, especially on the ceiling and interior portion of the theatre. Due to the introduction of GST, parking space and also multiplex cinemas mushrooming in the city, it has been hard to attract more crowd recently. Earlier people used to own two-wheelers, but these days many own four-wheelers, and with limited parking space that we have, it has been a hassle. Right now, we have not finally decided as to what we will be operating here- we may start screening movies again or switch to a different business. Until then cross your fingers!”

The Pai brothers also said in the past during the morning hours prior to the movie timings, they used to rent the theatre for weddings, also stating that during those years many wedding receptions only served snacks in a packet and a drink-no lunch- so this theatre was convenient to host wedding receptions. The theatre was also used for plays with Dr Rajkumar as an actor, and auditorium for music programmes like that of Bhimsen Joshi, whenever it was needed. A few snacks/bakery shop owners nearby to New Chitra said since the theatre stopped showing films, our sales have dropped quite a bit-earlier movie goers used to buy snacks/soft drinks.

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