Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Sep 18: The first ever theatre of Dakshina Kannada (DK), 'New Chitra', which had been able to carve out a niche for itself by screening films of various languages, has not been showing any movies since about a month.

The entire area where this theatre is located has come to be known as 'New Chitra' because of the fact that this was the most popular and significant building in this locality. Another theatre in the city, 'Platinum' had stopped working a month ahead of New Chitra.

'New Chitra' happened to be the venture of Kochikar Vittaldas Pai from Brahmavar. He along with a partner, set up 'Hindustan Cinema', which was the first ever cinema theatre in the region, in 1926.

In course of time, the theatre had gained lot of popularity. Initially, because it was the period of silent cinema, the practice of a few people getting seated among the audience and giving voices to characters was in vogue. After talkie films started to be made, Vittaldas Pai took over the reins of the theatre and renamed it as 'Shree Chitra Talkies' in 1936. Hindi movie, 'Mukti', was the first ever film to be exhibited here. Thereafter, most of the time, English movies were being screened here although occasionally Tamil and Hindi movies also were listed.

The children of Vittaldas Pai renovated the theatre in 1973 and christened it as 'New Chitra'. 'Titanic' and 'Enter the Dragon' were the movies which drew highest number of audiences at this theatre. Some Kannada and Telugu movies were also screened in this theatre having a capacity of 572. A Hindi movie, 'Sant Jnaneshwar' had an extended run at this theatre. The threatre is currently being managed by K Devadas Pai and Shankar Pai brothers, third in the generation of K Vittaldas Pai. Shankar Pai attributed the decision for stopping operation as crashing of market, adding that a decision about the theatre would be taken soon.

The local people recall that this theatre had also been transformed into marriage hall, theatre for plays with Dr Rajkumar as an actor, and auditorium for music programmes like that of Bimsen Joshi as per the need of the hour.