Underground

Tucked away behind a larger building on Mount Road is this squat little building which really seems to have no reason to continue to remain in the business it is in. Anna Theatre has remained much the same since the time it started screening movies, which was, in my best guess, sometime in the 1960s. By that time, both Shanti and the Devi complex were functioning, and there was no reason why a single-screen theatre so close to them would be any threat; especially when it had no signage on the main road itself and seemed to be a place where you would go to watch re-runs after a few years.

But no. Anna Theatre seems to have not only held its own but actually flourished in the years since it began. No threat to the biggies next door, but it has been doing quite well. Possibly, it initially was the place you went to if you could not get tickets for the blockbusters running at Devi or Shanti; over time, it has become one of the screens for releasing new movies as well.

Remaining largely unchanged, with some technology upgrades, Anna Theatre today screens three shows. All of them are the latest releases. And all of them with big name stars. Not bad at all for a theatre that should have gone down anytime in the last couple of decades. But wait - there is a unique feature that this theatre has, supposedly. I haven't been to it and I haven't met anyone with firsthand knowledge of this, but the screen here is in the basement - and that's probably a bigger attraction than the movie itself!