In Tagore's abode, halls finally play the national anthem

KOLKATA: The Supreme Court's order making it mandatory for all theatres to play the national anthem penned by Rabindranath Tagore before every show has sparked off controversies across the country. At the centre of the anthem controversy in Bengal have been two theatres in Tagore's abode which were not playing the anthem. Problems were finally resolved after TOI brought the matter to the notice of theatre owners on Thursday.

At least 20 people were caught on the wrong foot across the country for failing to stand up when the anthem was played before a film show. The decision not to play the anthem at the two cinemas in Bolpur-Santiniketan therefore had come as a big surprise to many. Yet till late on Thursday afternoon, the anthem was not played at

Chitra cinema hall

. When TOI tried to find the reason behind this, it turned into a blame game of sorts between the theatre owner and the digital cinema distribution network provider. This continued till late in the afternoon before matters were finally sorted out.

In the morning, Ajay Bakliwal, who is the booker for Chitra cinema hall, passed on the buck to the officials of

UFO Moviez

- the digital cinema distribution network. "We don't have our own projection system. Hence, we need to depend on UFO to provide us with the content. Every time we have asked them about this content, they have told us that they haven't received any directive from the government," Bakliwal said.

When TOI got in touch with the CEO of UFO Moviez Rajesh Mishra, he said, "We have delivered the content to everyone. Possibly, there was a problem with the operator who didn't schedule it on time. I will be personally sending across my engineer to ensure that the anthem is played there."

On being asked if the risk of contempt of court is any cause of worry, Ranadhir De, the owner of Chitra cinema hall, said, "After I learnt about the problem from TOI, I called up my manager. In our theatre, we were playing 'The Last Tale of Kayenaat'. He said the content hasn't been delivered. There is no question of disobeying the Supreme Court order. If we have the content, why will we not play it?"

This back and forth passing the buck continued throughout Thursday afternoon till Mishra called up TOI in the evening to say: "There was a glitch. The anthem is finally being played." De added, "We found that UFO had sent the anthem but in a folder titled 'trailer'. That's why we had problems identifying the folder."

It was a similar situation at Gitanjali cinema in Bolpur. On Thursday morning, Sushanta Garai, a staff of Gitanjali, said: "We have not been able to download the content yet. There was no one to do it." On being asked if any viewer for "Kahaani 2" or "Amar Prem" had protested, Garai replied in the negative.

When the incident was reported to producer Mahendra Soni of Shree Venkatesh Films (SVF), who has the lease for Gitanjali cinema and is also the eastern India distributor of Qube Digital Cinema that provides the content of the anthem to this theatre, he said, "Yes, there was a technical snag. But we will have the problem resolved soon." On Thursday evening, the problem was resolved. But the anthem couldn't be played because the show was cancelled since there were no viewers. "We have been playing the anthem before all the four shows of 'Byomkesh Parbo' and '

Star Wars

' on Friday," said Gitanjali's manager Tathagata Singha Roy.