This was the wrong time to get into the movie-theater business. A few years after Krishan Mohan, the head of Delhi’s electricity family, bought Priya Cinemas in 1978, the VHS boom engulfed the country. Thanks to the liberal import policies of late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s, VCPs and VCRs suddenly became available at affordable prices. The middle class and rich used to sit in their living rooms and bedrooms and watch Bollywood and Hollywood movies on pirated and original video cassettes. Towns and small towns were soon flooded with video libraries, who rented them out. Many people did not want to go to the cinema hall.
At that time, theaters were single screens with five daily shows. As video cassettes ruined the theater business, most of the halls fell into disrepair for lack of maintenance. Oddly, cinema tickets were covered under the Essential Commodities Act in those days, and their prices were limited to Rs 10-12. Each state had its own maximum price, and the entertainment tax was as high as 100 percent. “These factors left the entire movie theater circuit—then…
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