Magic on Kolkata's streets

By Sujoy Dhar

Kolkata, Jan 1 (IANS) Every evening Mohammad Salim ventures out of his hovel with a century-old contraption to peddle movie magic for just one rupee. He has been entertaining people this way for 40 long years.

A filmmaker from New York is set to capture Salim and his mobile theatre in a film for international audience.

In this crowded Indian metropolis of brand new cineplexes, umpteen movie theatres, DVD parlours and 24-hour access to cable TV channels, people still gather round the 50-year-old Salim's anachronistic movie cart, for a trip down the memory lane of an era of reel romanticism.

As Salim wheels a rectangular cart, with a 106-year-old Japanese projector, young and old crowd around the mobile theatre every few yards in the grimy lanes of old Kolkata.

Disregarding the blurry quality of the images, they are all happy to shell out one rupee for a five-minute fast-paced Bollywood trailer packed with song, dance and action.

As one negotiates a maze of dark and narrow staircase and corridors to the tiny room of Salim to explore the man and his machine, his family gleefully welcomes the visitor.

Ensconced in the room of a precariously built multi-storey tenement in north Kolkata's Marquis Square, Salim told IANS: "I am entertaining people with my machine for the past 40 years. It surprises me that even in these days of DVD and cable TV, the interest of people has not diminished the least.

"I am supporting my family of wife and six children with only this. From 25 paise per viewer in the late 1970s to one rupee now, the show is going on and people are lapping it up every day," boasts Salim.

His 14-year-old second son Ashraf brings out the 1898 marked projector, the teenager's dreamy eyes gleaming with the pride of a prized family possession.

"I purchase the footage - all film trailors - from the film scrap markets in Chandni Chowk, Canning Street and Murgihata. From Sunny Deol starrer 'Dushmani' to 'Allah Rakha' and recent David Dhawan release 'Mujse Shaadi Karogi', I have a huge stock," says Salim.

His arduous trek with the clattering cart begins at 4 p.m. with a microphone blaring the celluloid wonders inside the box. The journey continues often till 11 p.m. as he traverses a distance of 20 km at times in a single day.

"We all love to watch his shows," says a shopkeeper in Salim's neighbourhood.

Poor children and street urchins, mostly from the Muslim-inhabited areas of the city, keep following Salim.

The cart has in its innards a 15-inch screen on which the Japanese projector, mounted atop the box, throws the images as the audience, up to a group of 20, watch it with popped eyes, their heads curtained by black clothes on either sides to create darkness.

Salim says: "I inherited this projector from my father Mohammad Khalil who died in 1977. He used to show movie clips the same way I do but there was no audio.

"I later improvised on this projector. I can proudly claim that I own a miniature movie theatre in my five-foot-long and three-foot-broad cart.

"I don't know from whom my father got it. I keep improvising on the machine and am capable of mending it when required.

Salim is sure he won't sell his machine.

He says: "I have been enticed several times by many people, including foreigners, to sell it for a handsome price. Some offered even Rs.500,000 for the machine. But I would never sell it, come what may.

"Today if people know me in this area, it is because of this machine. I can never sell it for any price. Just like I used to walk with my father with this machine, my sons also walk with me.

"They would never sell it, but take over from me one day the legacy."

For Salim, the projector is not just a tool of his livelihood. He says: "It is my life."

-Indo-Asian News Service