![]() ![]() Ravi, 35, manages the store out front and monitors the film playing on the five by six feet screen through a hole in the back of his store. Their theatre is a room behind the store. In the parlance of video parlours, a ‘master print’ is a legal, non-pirated DVD of a film. ![]() Instead, he waits for the ‘master print’ to come out. But, he says, he never screens new films running in the multiplexes or big theatres. In a tacit agreement with Mahesh Video Centre, Kishore Stores shows only Tamil films, switching occasionally to a Telugu or Malayalam film when they are running low. “We thought there is no cable here and our people are here, so we could show them Tamil films.” “We heard that our people are here, so we came here.” Ponpandi started Kishore Stores to cater to the settlement’s need for Tamil entertainment. He first worked in a steel company near Borivali station and lived in Kajupada in Borivali East for a while before coming to Orlem. Ponpandi, 55, came from Madurai to Bombay when he was 16. The hole in the wall selling tobacco and candy leads into a video parlour of its own. Kumar walks down to Kishore Stores to buy a cigarette. Standing a mere 20 metres away, Kishore Stores is run by Ravi Raman and his older brother V. “They won’t play a film till the match is over,” he says. ![]() Arun Kumar, 22, a young call centre employee and frequent patron of the theatre, stands outside, bored. India is playing Pakistan in the third match of the One Day International series. On these rare occasions, the bhaiyya log and the anna log (the Tamilians) sit in together. Every once in a while, he also screens cricket matches. “This is the oldest video parlour in the area,” Mahesh claims. At a time, an audience of up to 40 people can seat themselves on the two rows of wooden benches in this theater. The wall outside the theatre is plastered with posters of the films playing at various times. The theatre is a large room with a six by eight feet projection screen at one end. At his theatre, Mahesh usually screens Hindi and Bhojpuri films to cater to his usual audience: migrant labourers from Uttar Pradesh-or the bhaiyya log as they are called in these parts-who live and work in the area. The man putting up the poster pats Akshay Kumar’s face into place. People stop by to see which film is going to play in the evening. A new film poster is going up on the outside wall of his theatre. He saw the colony grow from a largely desolate area to the densely packed community that it is today. Approximately 40 years ago, it was set up by his father Jeyaraj Chellaya Nader. Although his family hails from Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, Mahesh was born and brought up in Orlem. On one such lane stands Mahesh Video Centre, run by 37 year old Mahesh Chelladurai Nader. Walking along the path that turns off Link Road, the grey clusters reveal themselves to be a densely packed colony with many narrow lanes lined with small shops, and one-room houses stacked one on top of the other. On Google Maps, Orlem is yet another mass of tiny grey squares that the arterial Link Road, linking, as its name suggests, some of Mumbai’s largest suburbs, melts into at some point. This street could be anywhere in Tamil Nadu, except it is not. Orlem, Malad, is a small lower middle-class neighbourhood in the Western suburbs of Mumbai. Along with Hindi and English, the signboards on shops have the squiggly lines of Tamil letters. Up ahead is a tiny building with a banner announcing it to be Velankanni Church, a replica of the famous basilica of Our Lady of Good Health located in a small town called Vailankanni in the Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu. Along this road are small eateries with giant sizzling griddles set up at their entrances churning out dosas. Amidst the regular sounds of traffic one can hear snatches of conversation in Tamil. Children in white and blue uniforms are on their way back from school. In the early afternoon in Orlem, Malad, a few construction workers are walking home for lunch. The story of ‘Chhota Dharavi’ and its unique cinematic culture.
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