Pre-partition Hyderabad cinema being razed for shopping plaza

HYDERABAD: Shahab Cinema, which has existed in Hyderabad since before the partition of the subcontinent, is being demolished these days so that a shopping plaza can be constructed in its place.

Located in the middle of Shahi Bazaar and the business centre, Shahab Cinema has held unforgettable memories for the locals before and after the creation of Pakistan.

During the pre-partition era, a majority of Hindus used to live around Shahab Cinema, so they used to perform Ram Leela and other religious events at the cinema.

Shahab Cinema is one of the oldest cinemas in Hyderabad where the working class used to watch films. It is the last movie theatre to have been standing tall against the gentrification of Hyderabad.

The cinema used to play mostly Punjabi and Urdu films. It was an old construction without air conditioners. The locals considered it the best place to enjoy Pakistani films with traditional seating arrangements.

Yasin Hameed, a journalist who writes about showbiz in Hyderabad and collects archives, says he had watched Urdu, Sindhi, Punjabi and Pushto films being screened at Shahab Cinema.

Hameed says the actors Muhammad Ali, Waheed Murad and Habib used to come to the cinema for the premieres of their respective films. The premiere of Sultan Rahi’s Punjabi film, titled ‘Basheera’, was also held at the same cinema, and Rahi himself attended it, he adds.

He says that when Sindh had been affected by floods during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s tenure as prime minister, a fundraiser for the victims was held at Shahab Cinema, and was attended by political, business and social personalities.

Senior journalist Ali Hassan says Shahab Cinema was the oldest and cheapest entertainment venue among the 23 cinemas in the city. He says Hyderabad was the centre of Sindh’s culture, but no one tried to save its heritages or preserve its history.

Hassan laments that the bureaucracy and politicians did not pay any attention, pointing out that Shahab Cinema was the city’s heritage that could have been saved by the provincial government.

He also says that the cinema’s plot is categorised as a welfare plot because the locals can find enjoyment here. He recalls that according to the code of conduct, wherever a cinema is razed to construct a shopping or residential plaza, the builder is bound to build a new cinema on one of the floors.

He laments that Hyderabad is now left with only Bambino Cinema. Apart from this, he remarks, all the cinemas have been demolished to make plazas in their places, but no new cinema has been built anywhere.

Hameed says that when Shahab Cinema was being demolished, many showbiz lovers, including him, wanted to buy the old machinery, pamphlets, banners and posters of the cinema, but they were instead sold to a junk dealer.

Ali Nawaz, who has been working as a cameraman in Hyderabad for two decades, says Shahab Cinema was located in the centre of the city, near which he also lives.

Nawaz recalls that Shahab Cinema was closed for the past one year, and when the demolition began, some fans came to collect the archives, but they sold all of the memorabilia to a junk dealer.

Hameed says that the first Sindh film, titled ‘Ekta’, was made in 1940, and it was also screened at Shahab Cinema. Besides that, he adds, the screening of every new Punjabi film was mandatory there.

He says that on the one hand, on December 21, there was talk of preserving culture and heritage at the Sheikh Ayaz Mela, but on the other, a shopping plaza is being constructed by demolishing Shahab Cinema. Had the government wanted, it could have bought and preserved this heritage, he points out.