Under a moonlit sky, a young Ashwath Naganathan watched Tamil film Duet in 1994 with his family at Chennai’s Prarthana Beach Drive-In theatre. When Kadri Gopalnath’s saxophone tunes from this musical did not punctuate the night air, Ashwath could hear the waves of the sea in the not-so-distant background.
“We were a big group and went in two cars,” he says, recalling a nearly three decades’ old experience like it was just yesterday. Subsequently, Ashwath has watched more than 25 films there, including hits like Indian, Mudhalvan and Vasoolraja MBBS. “We have a deep emotional connect with this place.”
Ashwath, now a music composer in the film industry, is yet to get over the recent news that Prarthana Drive-In is shutting down to make way for ultra luxury villas by Baashyam Constructions. Established in 1991 by N Devanathan, Prarthana Beach Drive-In, located on East Coast Road, was a favourite among movie-goers for its family-friendly atmosphere and pictureseque surroundings. It however was not functional in the last few years.
“We always took home-cooked food to the theatre. While some of us sat on sheets that we spread out near the car, my grandparents would sit on chairs that we brought along. At times, we would buy the tickets at Srinivasa Theatre in West Mambalam, and would get easy access inside Prarthana, without waiting in queue,” adds Ashwath.
Living the movies
Soon, there will be an apartment complex where back in the Nineties and 2000s, people perched atop their cars to watch a film. Or spread blankets and binged on murukku enjoying a comedy. Vikashini Ravikumar, who grew up in Singapore, knows that well; she spent her summer holidays in Chennai, and her father’s only promise was: “I’ll take you to Prarthana.”
“We would go there and father would doze off because of the cool breeze,” laughs Vikashini, now a researcher at the University of Cambridge. She remembers watching Priyamanavale, Baba and Ezhumalai here. “We had a Tata Sierra then and as a child, I watched these films sitting on its bonnet. We would mostly land up long before the film started and have a lot of fun.”
A The Hindu article published in 1997 states that the screen measured 100 ft by 60 ft. It added that the “vast expanse” could accommodate 175 to 200 cars. For the “open air” experience, visitors paid ₹30 a head and ₹5 for the vehicle.
Dharma Chandru, a Chennai-based photographer, was a regular at Prarthana and vividly remembers watching Kamal Haasan’s Singaravelan (1992) here. “We did not even know what a drive-in was, because there was little buzz about it back then,” says Dharma. But he loved the experience, and eventually ended up taking more trips to the cinema hall in subsequent years. “I’ve watched so many films there, including Jurassic Park, Parthiban Kanavu and Imsai Arasan 23m Pulikesi. The theatre was particularly popular with parents as they could bring their children along and could even take frequent walking breaks and still not miss out on the movie.”
If it is nostalgia for Dharma, it is all about the ‘big screen experience’ for writer Divya Jayaraman, who currently works for the Chennai-based Indo Cine Appreciation Foundation, a non-profit organisation that works for the promotion of parallel and non-commercial cinema. In 2016, Divya made it a point to catch Mohanlal-starrer Puli Murugan in the theatre just to “experience the larger-than-life tiger sequences”.
Divya rues that she would not be able to do so any more. As Dharma says, “Prarthana was like a good old family picnic spot.”
