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, 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.

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 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 probaly 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 like Sami & Nedu joined the club...Together, we watched Aliens, Predator, Abyss, Ghostbusters, the Indiana Jones series, Die Hard and countless other films here. We  witnessed the changing face of Hollywood entertainment, one movie at a time.

90s The best bond girls era 

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, from The Mask and Ace Ventura to Dumb and Dumber. 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 - the centenary year of Charlie Chaplin!

We witnessed the rise of Arnold Schwarzenegger into a cult hero of Madurai with movies like Predator and Commando running houseful for days! ...Even when he had a second name that any one hardly pronounced right 😊

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 growing-up teen years 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.