Jamshedji Framji Madan pioneered cinema exhibition in India. In 1905 he established the Elphinstone Picture Palace in Calcutta and over the next 100 years, he and numerous Parsi entrepreneurs (the families of Kooka, Sidhwa, Sukhia, Modi, Dubash, Marfatia, etc) owned and ran over 250 single screen cinema theaters across undivided India and Burma. Other than the obvious Indian towns and cities, I found cinemas in unexpected places like Katni in Madhya Pradesh, where this photograph (below) was taken. At the old projection room at Mohan Talkies, once owned by a Dubash family, I saw framed prints of Zoroaster and Persepolis. Today, 118 years later, I can think of only two Parsi owned cinemas that are still running. Regal in Bombay, and Victory in Poona.
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