Refurbished cinema hall opens after 14 years

Ajay Ramola

Tribune News Service

Mussoorie, July 14

Bollywood superstar Salman Khan is ready to regale the film crazy audience of Mussoorie, once again, through his latest film “Sultan” in the twin screen cinema that was inaugurated after more than 14 years at Library Bazaar here today.

The single screen Vasu cinema that went out of business due to a drastic fall in the number of audience in the late 1990s has been converted into a twin theatre cineplex and renamed as Ritz Cinema. It is well equipped with a Dolby surround sound system and boasts of being on a par with screens in any metro city of the country.

A havan and other religious rituals were performed to mark the occasion. Later the family members of the three businessmen from Mussoorie, namely Sandeep Sahni, Rajat Agarwal and Rajat Kapoor, opened the cinema hall for public with the screening of the trailer of Salman Khan’s “Sultan” and clips from the films of yesteryear much to the delight of the invited audience.

A heavy rush was seen at the ticket counters as most of the film buffs, including Savita Singh, aged 66, stood in the queue for the first day first show ticket here. Ranjit Rawat, MLA and close associate of Chief Minister, and Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, former Chief Minister, also enjoyed a brief moment at the theatre watching a few clips of various films.

Notably, the hill town boasts of having seven cinema halls since the British era but for different reasons most of these were shut down around 18 years ago.

Former students of boarding schools such as Oak Grove, Wynberg Allen School, St. George’s in Mussoorie were quick to commend the three businessmen behind the project. They said the Cinema halls of the town were a source of entertainment back then and it was here that they had watched many films such as “Mckennna’s Gold”, “Guns of Navarone”, “All Quiet on Western Front”, “Aradhana”, “Muqqadar ka Sikandar”.

Senior citizen Pramod Sahney says Ritz was an abbreviated form of Royal Incarnation of this time.

Local chronicler Gopal Bhardwaj says the Electric later known as Picture Palace was the first cinema hall of northern India that was opened here in 1912.

Principal Wynberg Allen School L. Tindale was elated at the opening of the twin theatre in Mussoorie. He said entertainment is an integral part of the growth of any child and cinema halls provide that along with inculcating the sense of creativity among the students. Now, students would get an opportunity to watch their heroes in the town itself during outings, which is indeed delightful, he added.

Sahni said their objective was to create an environment conducive to the town and they were not seeing it as only as a profit-making venture.