Pakistan once had countless cinemas bringing romance, music, tragedy and action to both city and town. That has been all but replaced today by a handful of multi-screens in a few big cities, with ticket prices only a few can afford.

As journalist Qaisar Kamran writes, there was a time “when a ticket cost less than a meal” and “for a few hours, everyone could sit in the dark and disappear into a story.”

The journalist Muhammad Suhayb takes us on a cinema-hopping journey in his article ‘The Death of Single Screens’: from Empire Cinema near Civil Hospital, where Pakistan’s first-ever film, Teri Yaad (1948)), was screened, to Regal, now Regal Trade Centre, where Dilip Kumar and Noor Jehan’s Jugnu (1947) completed its silver jubilee. Naz (now Naz Shopping Centre) and Nishat (now a commercial building after it burnt down in 2012) were called Radha and Krishna, after the names of the owner’s children.

The central role of cinema is best understood by a story of Mehboob Khan’s Ailan, released all over India on August 14, 1947. The reels lay on Lahore’s chaotic train platform, where families traumatised by rioting arrived........

© Dawn (Magazines)