KOLKATA: The facade of Jaya Cinema in Lake Town has so far remained intact, not a scratch to reveal what’s going on in the background, literally. But a walk down the adjacent lane followed by a left turn suddenly reveals a different reality: the 774-seat Jaya and its twin theatre, 442-seat Mini Jaya, are being demolished, marking the end of one more single-screen theatre in the city.
Piled bricks, rubble and memories lie stacked at 225, Block A, Lake Town. But not all is lost for those who say Jaya Cinema, built in 1967, is not just a theatre but also an emotion. The owners have planned a comeback with a swanky mall, a multiplex included.
Records say Gouranga Chandra Banik owned three cinemas in Assam. In 1967, he decided to open another cinema, but this one in Kolkata, and Jaya was founded in Lake Town. The first Bengali film to have premiered there was ‘Jiban Mrityu’.
Mini Jaya, which was added in the late ’70s, was burned to the ground last year, when a fire broke out on the premises on July 2. Everything, from the seats to the screen, sound system and AC ducts, was gutted. Jaya was thankfully spared, but it never reopened even when the state government allowed cinemas to resume operations with 50% occupancy last year, following the Covid shutdown. Its owner, Manik Banik, had told TOI last year that instead of spending money on rebuilding the cinema, he would rather remodel it and increase the number of screens to three.
With hardly any viewers during the pandemic, many theatre owners did find it difficult to run cinemas and several single-screen owners had thought of changing to multiplexes.
Banik told TOI on Sunday that his “remodelling” plan was being implemented. There are quite a few multiplexes in Nager Bazar and Salt Lake, within a radius of 5km-6km of Jaya. But there was no harm in taking a chance and opening ‘Jaya Multiplex’ on the same premises, he said. “After the fire, we had nothing left that could be rebuilt for use now. It has been almost six months since the demolition work slowly began. The plan is to have a mall, a food court and a multiplex,” Banik added.
The seating capacity will get reduced from the original 1,216 seats of Jaya and Mini Jaya combined to the proposed 700-750 of the multiplex. Work on the new structure will begin from scratch. “It will take at least another one-and-a-half months to complete the razing. Then, work will begin on building the new structure. On a rough estimate, it should take another three years to start operations,” Banik added.
Source: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiemh0dHBzOi8vdGltZXNvZmluZGlhLmluZGlhdGltZXMuY29tL2NpdHkva29sa2F0YS9qYXlhLW1pbmktamF5YS1zZXQtZm9yLW1hbGwtbXVsdGlwbGV4LXN3aXRjaG92ZXIvYXJ0aWNsZXNob3cvOTY4NDIzNzEuY21z0gF1aHR0cHM6Ly9tLnRpbWVzb2ZpbmRpYS5jb20vY2l0eS9rb2xrYXRhL2pheWEtbWluaS1qYXlhLXNldC1mb3ItbWFsbC1tdWx0aXBsZXgtc3dpdGNob3Zlci9hbXBfYXJ0aWNsZXNob3cvOTY4NDIzNzEuY21z?oc=5
