Bengaluru: The cradle of State’s film industry Gandhinagar aka Majestic area in the city is losing two more iconic theatres soon. Tribuvan and Kailash are set to become history on Friday, April 29. Thus the number of single screen theatres at Majestic area will be reduced to seven. What matters for many nostalgic cine goers is that once K G Road alone in Majestic area housed more than 30 cinema halls, which was a record of its own in the country.
The owners of the twin-theatres have decided to stop screening films from Friday morning thus ending an era of favorite theaters for many cine goers. The theatres were also favorite ones for Telugu and Tamil film exhibitors. For many years Tribuvan was considered as the best theatre to release the movies right from Kannada, Hindi and Telugu.
The theatre was inaugurated by none other than Dr Rajkumar on 6th of December, 1973 with Rajkumar starrer Mooruvare Vajragalu, which completed 100 days. Later, several of Rajkumar’s movies were screened in the theatre which included blockbusters like Sampathige Saval and others which ran for more than 25 weeks over there.
In recent years, the only Kannada movie that completed 100 days in the theatre was First Rank Raju, said Balachandran, the manager of the theaters Tribuvan and Kailash. The theatre complex was on lease for 35 years and was renewed for 8 more years. The theatres were renovated 8 years ago with more leg room for a better movie watching experience due to which the seating capacity reduced to much extent, Balachandran said, indirectly indicating the financial condition of the business of showbiz.
In the history of Kailash theatre, Hindi film starring Aamir Khan, Qayamat Se Qayamat tak, had the longest run completing 50 weeks.
There are 14 people working at both the theatres as of now and most of them are on contract basis. There are only three employees who are hired on regular basis. Others are retired employees of these theatres who are working on contract basis, one of the workers said.
The Kannada film Last Bus scheduled at 7.30 pm on Thursday evening will be the last film to be screened at Kailash theatre.
In less than 12 years, single screen theatres that have been demolished in Bengaluru so far are more than 30 including most popular ones like Alankar, Apsara, Blue Moon, Blue Diamond, Central, Devi, Galaxy, Himalaya, Imperial, Geethanjali, Kalpana, Kempe Gowda, Lakshmi, Majestic, Maruthi, Minerva, Nanda, Pallavi, Prabhat, Shanti and Sagar.
