After the wonderful cinema Metro opened in Chowringhee in 1935, its brilliant art deco architecture and fixtures made a tremendous impact on the building styles of Calcutta. Soon afterwards, art deco became a big favourite in architectural, furniture and jewellery styles. There are many private houses along Chittaranjan Avenue right up to Lal Mandir and Alipore and cinemas as well that bear the stamp of this trend.
Among the cinemas, Orient on Bentinck Street was the most outstanding one. According to the Musical Film Private Limited, which owns it, its construction started in1946. The most prominent art deco feature of the building was the neon sign with its name emblazoned on it stretching from terrace to first floor. When single-screen cinemas were the order of the day, Orient was one of the most popular and some great Hindi films were released here.
This was long before the term Bollywood became popular and openings were grand affairs with mile-long queues of people at the box office, scalpers of both gender making hay, oily policemen lurking around for cuts, food vendors, and thousands of people blocking the traffic in the hope that starts would arrive.
Everything was on a lavish scale. Giant handpainted bill- boards with huge cutouts of the stars in action embellished the hall and in the evening these would be brightly lit. Many big hits had opened at Orient cinema like Durgesh Nandini, Sangam, Hum Kisise Kam Nahin, Jheel Ke Us Par, Sagar, Khalnayak and hundreds of others.
The stars did not disappoint and till the 1960s, when Calcutta was still considered safe, they were regular features at openings. The light- eyed Raj Kapoor, Parveen Babi, Jeetendra, Naveen Nischol and Sanjay Dutt were among the big names who made it. Fans began to scream and started to wolf-whistle (citi for the plebs) as they arrived and police would often have to resort to mild lathicharges to quell the mobs.
Brawls would break out among the scalpers and the local thugs, and fights with soda water bottle and cut- throats were weekly things. Sometimes the kingpin among scalpers would get knifed and even shot but the street was always alive till early morning. Then it all stopped, thanks to the lure of the TV followed by cable TV and the hall finally closed down in the early 1990s. Then after a few years it reopened as a bazaar where cut- price stuff was sold. That shut down soon and thereafter its future remained uncertain.
About a fortnight ago there was a flurry of activity late at night at the former cinema as trucks emerged from the gateway loaded with debris. Now it is certain that the days of Orient cinema are numbered. It is being dismantled with people working round the clock. Local people are glad that this is happening. They will get what they want – a mall. But the owners say it will be another dreary office block.
Rolls on a roll
The Calcutta egg roll is making inroads into Europe.
An event on Facebook called “Calcutta egg rolls and Scottish cheese rolls” invites people to dig into the snacks on July 19. The venue: Haugesund in Norway. And the creator of the event, 25-year-old Sarah Christin Aga, has never been to India.
The story behind the humble roll’s journey to Europe unfolded in Rome, where Sarah, originally from Norway, used to work and study. Last month, in a cook-together in the Italian capital, an Indian tourist introduced her to the Calcutta roll. It was love at first bite.
She went back to Norway and made it for her family and friends and everyone loved it. That gave her the idea for this event. We wish Sarah the best in her quest to popularise Calcutta rolls!
[By Arnab Nandy, Soumitra Das]