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Madhavi Tangella: Sagar Cinema - An Illegal 'Poor Man's Multiplex' in a Malad Slum
Madhavi Tangella: Sagar Cinema - An Illegal 'Poor Man's Multiplex' in a Malad Slum
Malad (a suburb of Mumbai on the Western Express Highway) is home to a large community of migrant Telugu labourers. They live and cook in large groups and rent cheap housing. They rarely have any access to television. Instead, they regularly visit Sagar Cinema, which screens a Telugu film every day at 10.30 pm. Sagar Cinema is an illegal theatre in a slum area of Malad. It has four rooms; two rooms are equipped with video projectors, and the other two screen films on TV sets. Instead of the gimmicks and astronomical fee of a regular multiplex, Sagar Cinema sells tickets at a flat price of Rs. 10, but it mirrors a complex cinematic multiplicity; thus, it might be called a poor man's multiplex. Sagar offers a curious mix of Telugu and Hindi mainstream action-packed thrillers and soft poronography. At the cinema, migrants can hear a language they understand, see their hero fighting the big bad world and winning and, lastly, experience a sense of nostalgia about "home" as generated through images in the big screen. The study wishes to explore the interface of the above two themes of cinema and migration within the mapping of a city space.