The huge green safety cloth used to cover a building, which has to undergo extensive renovation, made many a hearts in South Bombay miss a beat when it hid the iconic heritage building that is Eros Cinema, earlier this week. People started speculating whether the refurbishment would rob the cinema of its old-world charm and unique character. Worse still, people feared that the cinema, which has been a pillar of Bombay’s art deco heritage since 1938, would be demolished. However, the likelihood of the single-screen cinema being demolished and making way for a commercial mall or the like seems to be remote because of the heritage tag associated with the 1,024-seater single-screen cinema. There were also rumours that the huge cinema would be rebuilt as a 300-seater with the interiors being altered so that the character and the old-world charm would be lost forever. Some know-alls claimed that the exterior of the iconic cinema would be retained while the equally loved interiors would be changed.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) clarified that it was only the façade of the cinema, which was undergoing renovation and that the cinema would reopen thereafter. Eros had shut down operations in 2017. The Cambata family, which owns the cinemas, is settled abroad.
Cambata Building, which houses the iconic Eros cinema, was sealed by the suburban district collector officials in January 2017 because 1,200 employees of another company of the Cambata family — ground handling agency Cambata Aviation And Bird Worldwide Flight Service — had complained to the labour court of pending dues despite suspension of operations in Bombay and Delhi.