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| As cinemas continue to remain closed, Kashmiris switch to secondary forms of entertainment | | | Mudasir Tariq
SRINAGAR, Aug 21: For the people living outside Kashmir, cinema halls and movie theaters are generally places of great entertainment. Queues of cinema lovers could be seen outside the cinema halls. Contrary to that in Srinagar, the cinema houses are wearing a dusty look following the early-1990s ban imposed by militant groups.
While as the local cinema halls of the valley are seen wearing an abandoned look, yet the love for movies especially Bollywood has remained stable throughout. The local masses of the valley particularly youth are said to be finding delight through secondary forms of cinema via pirated DVD's and internet.
Easy availability of DVD'(Digital Versatile Disc ) in various markets of city at cheap rates and a speedy access to the internet sources, movies of different genres are being watched by every age group in the valley either through pirated DVD's or exclusive online movie websites like Cinema Den, surfthechanel.com, film.fm, Nyoo TV, BlockbusterTV.com and many more.
"In the absence of the popular cinema culture in valley, watching movies in a cinema here is a pipe dream, being a cinema lover whenever I happen to went out of the valley, the first thing that I do is to watch a latest block buster in a multiplex. But here in valley we have to rely ourselves on the other forms of entertainment. We watch movies in our homes on television and internet," said Basit Bhat, a movie lover.
Over the years this trend of entertainment has been cumulative. The demand for these DVD'S has increased manifold and a significant number of people have been associated with the business of selling DVD's and providing the entertainment to the movie buffers of valley.
"I have been in this business of selling DVD's and CD's for more than seven years now. After the problem started in Kashmir in nineties the cinema were totally shut down. 'Neelam' is currently the only functioning cinema hall in Kashmir, but it shows films to just a handful of people at a time. People now have adopted themselves to this change and we are doing a great business, Due to the overwhelming response from the people across the city, I decided to stick to the same business of selling these movies," said Abdul Rashid, a local DVD dealer.
With an overloaded movie database available on the internet all the time displaying movies, TV shows, feature films, art films, cartoons, documentaries and alike, people in the valley prefer to rely frequently on World Wide Web for the greater entertainment purpose.
Iqbal Lone, a young movie lover holds the dormant state of the valley cinema halls responsible for more people watching movies online. Iqbal, alike most of the youngsters in the valley habitually watch all the recent movies through internet. "Most of the youngsters, especially those who were born in and after the eighties including me, have never seen a movie in a cinema hall, but secondary form of cinema here has done wonders in entertaining the masses. There are plenty of online movie websites available these days. I watch all the movies online for a better quality, great movie selection and very fast loading," said Iqbal.
Surprisingly not only the Bollywood movies catch attention in valley, but there is a growing audience for Hollywood, Iranian and Spanish movies also and for such audiences internet has been very much expedient.
"Internet has been a great source for me to watch foreign movies. The best thing is that one can watch a movie of any genre just at a click without spending any money. The variety available on these websites is wide. From classics to popular and independent films, internet has it all," said Nausheen, a movie lover. |
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