Vintage postcards 3 - Mumbai series 1980s

 

Vintage postcards 2

Few vintage cards from the 1980s collection 

 

Vintage postcards 1

 Few vintage postcards from my 1920s collection ( 1927-28)

Mappillai Vinayagar – Our Window to Hollywood

Madurai has had several cinema halls that occupy a special place in the city's cultural history. Among them, Mappillai Vinayagar Theatre at Kalavasal holds a particularly special place for those who grew up during the 1980s and 1990s. Established in the early 1980s by the family who ran the Sri mappilai vinayagar soda brand, it became a favourite destination for English film lovers. Its association with Manikka Vinayagar Theatre, which came up beside it a little later , made the complex an important Hollywood cinema destination in Madurai until it closed down in 2008.

I think the first movie I watched here was Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I still remember the excitement of discovering a theatre with clean seats, proper Air conditioning and an ambience so different from the other local cinema halls. Movies like Omar Mukhtar, Night Crossing, Romancing the stone and E.T. were among the most memorable films I have watched here with my parents.

Then came Chella Kumar to my school when I was in seventh standard. That introduction marked the beginning of a lifelong friendship and an enduring association with cinema, particularly Hollywood movies. It started with Clint Eastwood's Where Eagles dare that we saw in another theatre (cine priya). But our first movie in Mappilai vinayagar probably was the re- release of the bond classic 'Diamonds are forever'. What started as occasional movie outings gradually became a shared passion.

Later my other classmates Sami, Nedu & others joined the club...Together, we watched Aliens, Predator, Abyss, The fly, Ghostbusters, Die Hard, Speed, There's something about mary and countless other films accross genres here. We  witnessed the changing face of Hollywood entertainment, one movie at a time.

Femme fatales -The best bond girls era! 

GoldenEye was a blockbuster at Mappilai vinayagar -  those were the days without online ticketing! There was a long que and a mad crowd at the box office. But Chella would not giveup.. He managed to get the tickets. 

We witnessed here the transformation of James Bond from the charming Roger Moore to our big disappointment -Timothy Dalton, and eventually to our big relief -Pierce Brosnan! We followed the evolution of our favourite comedian Jim Carrey, through The Mask, Ace Ventura, Dumb and Dumber and more. We discussed the mastery of Spielberg and James Cameron... We relished the soundscapes created by Hans Zimmer and John Williams.

We travelled into the past with the Jurassic Park and into the future with Independence Day and The Terminator. We watched the Titanic sink and the Matrix rise!

And remember.. Those were the days without subtitles! We understood what we understood!

We witnessed our first film festival here in 1989 - the centenary year of Charlie Chaplin! ( AI generated poster )

We witnessed the rise of Arnold Schwarzenegger into a cult hero of Madurai with movies like Predator, Commando & True Lies running houseful for days! ...Even when he had a second name that any one hardly pronounced right 😊 ( Arnold Swasikiraar and Arnold SwitchaNakkuraar were the most popular ones that I can recollect )
Predator was the first english movie to run 50+ days!

The theatre employed an innovative idea of having the story of the movie written in Tamil and posted as display ... And the post corner was always crowded. A precursor to subtitles!🙂

And, of course, there were our Hollywood crushes! Kathleen Turner, Geena Davis, Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore,Sharon Stone, Meg Ryan, Demi Moore and many more. They were as much a part of our "coming of age" as the films themselves.

Looking back, we realise that we were not merely watching movies here. We were growing up. We evolved from childhood innocence to adolescent curiosity and eventually to adult maturity, with Mappillai and Manikka Vinayagar serving as a familiar backdrop to those transformations. The theatres became a meeting place for friendship, conversations, shared excitement and countless memories.

The theatres subsequently underwent changes in their identity and management. The screens now operate under the Shanmuga banner, catering to a wider Tamil and Hindi audience rather than remaining an English-film destination. That era is sadly lost forever! 

For us 80s kids, however, the name will always remain Mappillai Vinayagar. It was more than a theatre. It was our window to the world, our introduction to Hollywood, a meeting place for friends and, in many ways, an unwritten chapter of our growing-up years.

Some theatres screen movies. A few become part of our lives. Mappillai Vinayagar was certainly one of them.