I make my way through the makeshift narrow entrance. The security guard asks me to stop. A woman guard appears and directs me to step inside a cabin for a security check. Checking over, I move ahead.

There is no ticket window. Instead, there are sandbags lined along the entrance hall blocking the way to what was once a ticket window. As I look up the tired, aging building, a gun peeps out from the first floor window.

The manager here doubles as a ticket seller. Just a few minutes ago, he had been fixing posters of the next movie to be screened. ‘‘The cinema cannot afford to keep a huge work force now,’’ he says. Owning a theatre is a huge liability and so he has rented it out to Yash Raj Films.

‘‘There used to be time when the hall used to be houseful. People would throng cinema halls,’’ says Ali Mohammad Nagoo, who once sold tickets at the Pladium Cinema which was gutted during an encounter between the security forces and militants. ‘‘I clearly remember a Rs 8 ticket for Pakeezah being sold for Rs 60-70 in black at Shiraz Cinema. For Raj Kapoor’s Bobby, a Rs 1.50 ticket was sold for Rs 30-40. And the girls sat in 3rd class on bench to see this movie.’’

His face brightens as he recounts the old good times when people would wait in long queues outside Pladium.

At present, the average daily turnout at the Neelam is 100 to 150.

... contd.