Postcard: Mumbai

It's a fact that most of India celebrates the holy Khan triumvirate (Aamir, Salman and Shah Rukh) on celluloid. But there are still people devoted to action movies - especially those colloquially known as "masala movies" - and family flicks starring almost forgotten heroes from the 1980s, such as Jackie Shroff, Sunny Deol and Mithun Chakraborty. These viewers patronise the old single-screen cinema halls in Mumbai, some with English names (Alfred, Strand, Lido, Capitol) and others with Hindi ones (Gulshan, Kohinoor, Roshan).

Many of these theatres are landmarks that lend their names to the area in which they are located. Unfortunately, many others have been earmarked for demolition, to make way for a more commercially viable property or a modern multi-screen theatre.

Multiplexes are just over a decade old in Mumbai, but they have replaced single-screen cinemas with astonishing speed: more than 50 such cinemas are believed to have shut down in the past decade alone in Mumbai. To add to their woes, the state government (for reasons unknown) has also been providing tax concessions to multiplexes.

Multi-screen theatres are not new to Mumbai, of course, but the sleek multiplexes with their plush seating and a cornucopia of eating and even shopping options make a perfect evening out for the (upper middle-class) family and so are far greater threats to the remaining single-screen cinema halls.