Manasi's lights turned off on Eid

No movies, new or old, were screened at the historic Manasi cinema hall in Dhaka this Eid.

The main building of the hall, founded when cinema halls were first being established in the country, has been demolished.

This old hall on Bangshal Road in old Dhaka has been running since the British colonial rule, but time has taken its toll. It has held up screening movies now, the fourth time since its opening.

The halt is due to modernisation and repairs, said the authorities. They say, the ‘cineplex’ will run again but with a smaller space.

The decorated wooden entrance at the ground floor built during the British rule is no longer there, as was seen on Wednesday. The ticket counters have been replaced by two shops.

Nothing is remaining from the original design inside the main auditorium. The space once thronged by hundreds of film-lovers now is filled with several rooms.

The screen has been removed. Shops will be set up there as part of a market, said several construction workers.

The mosaic mural of people and landscape on either side of the staircase is hardly visible. The projection room has been demolished.

The hall canteen has been turned into temporary shelter for the construction workers. The office room inside is still intact. The projection equipment is piled up in a corner of the room.

The manager of the hall Khorshed Alam, who has been with the institution for about 40 years, said it was the first time he ever saw the hall being closed on Eid. The only time he saw it closed temporarily was during Ershad’s rule.

“I feel sad, but there’s nothing I can do. We have to move ahead with time.”

On behalf of ‘The New Pictures Limited’, Abul Kalam Azad is now in charge of running the hall. He said the owners, despite losses, have been running the hall for more than ten years.

Chowdhury Afsar Ahmed Siddiqui and Munira Siddiqui, descendants of zamindar Abrar Siddiqui from Gazipur, were determined to run the halls. They said that they would run the hall as long as it was possible, for the sake of heritage, not business, said Azad.

But the losses just increased to the extent that even the electricity bills could not be paid, let alone the employees’ wages. The large crowds once hard to be handled dwindled to near nothing over the last several years. Only Friday afternoons saw some crowds.

The situation compelled the owners to take the decision to set up a market on the ground floor and to run a small cineplex on the upper floor.

The hall had seating arrangements for 755 previously and it will become 250 as per the new plan. The plan also includes providing modern facilities in the space left for the cineplex.

The hall had been shut down twice before for a long period. Before the liberation war, Muslims rioters set fire to the hall during communal riots, thinking it was Hindu property due to its name. Following the incident the hall was shut down.

It was reopened with a new name, Nishat, after a long time. Once again, the newly named theatre was set on fire confusing it as a Paksitani asset.

The original name was restored after several days, but the word ‘Nishat’ still appears at different points. The canteen is named ‘Nishat’ and the adjacent market set up by its wall is called Nishat Super Market. 

The hall was named by Rabindranath Tagore at the behest of zamindar Abrar Ahmed Siddiqui from Kaliakoir of Gazipur. Abrar was one among the leaders of the East Pakistan Film Association in Dhaka following the 1947 partition of the continent, and of the East Bengal Film Association in 1952.

He took the initiative to set up the movie theater in 1926 and took advantage of Tagore’s stay in Dhaka at the time. There is a poetry collection of the great poet with the same title.