How a woman dentist scripted the spectacular reinvention of Kerala’s X-rated Girija theatre

It was the most infamous cinema theatre in the heart of Kerala that featured semi-pornographic films, with hardcore porn clips interpolated in between, drawing enormous crowds of male cinegoers. This was the story till Dr. KP Girija, a dentist with a postgraduate degree in oral pathology, took over the reins of the family theatre in 2006 and, within two years, transformed it into a vibrant art house that became highly coveted among families seeking quality Malayalam cinema experiences.

The story of the incredible metamorphosis of the Girija Theatre in Thrissur is a tale full of twists and turns, and the grit of its main protagonist who fought against all odds, burdened by mounting debts, and haunted by a murky past.

Cut to a flashback

The Girija Theatre, founded in 1957 by Dr Girija’s great grandfather PR Nambiar, passed on to her grandmother and subsequently to her father and uncles. It ran like any other ordinary movie talkies until the 1980s, when the theatre slipped into infamy for screening semi-porn movies. By then, the city started to have other theatres; Girija is about one mile away from the heart of the city. This led to dwindling footfalls. The soft-porn movies did not require huge upfront costs that mainstream movies did. No women patron stepped into its compound for more than 25 years. Such was the notoriety the theatre had gained, both for itself and for the locality.

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One of the few women patrons, who dared to go to the Girija Theatre to see Francis Ford Coppola’s horror flick Bram Stoker’s Dracula in the early 1990s, told The Federal: “It was in 1992 when I was studying in the Government Engineering College in Thrissur that I went to the Girija Theatre to watch Dracula with some male friends. They had tried hard to dissuade me from coming, citing the character of the cinema house, but I paid no heed to them.”

To her surprise, as she stepped into the theatre for the noon show, she quickly realised that she was the lone female amidst a packed audience. The theatre was teeming with eager moviegoers, nearly reaching its maximum capacity. The crowd passed lewd comments, and it seemed as though nearly half of the audience had their eyes fixed on her. It was only after about 15 to 20 minutes into the film that she understood that the audience was not truly keen on watching Dracula, but was waiting for something else.

“Then came the real thing. A pornographic reel flickered onto the screen, eliciting a chorus of jeering comments, accompanied by whistles and boos from the rows. Some men began openly masturbating. It was the most horrifying moment of my life. My boyfriend, who is my partner now, whisked me out of the theatre amidst a perverse crowd,” said the 50-year-old woman, who runs a business in the Middle East, over Skype.

The hall of shame 

Dr Girija was in seventh standard when she had the tryst with the theatre bearing her name; it was named after her by her grandmother. It was the nuns of her school who gave her the first shock of her life when she failed to pay a donation for the school magazine. “Why don’t you pay the money when your father is making huge profits by running blue films?” asked one of her teacher nuns, Dr. Girija recollected. What followed was the beginning of a terrible period of shame.

“I wanted to flee from Thrissur. I did not want to go to mixed (co-ed) college and studied well only to get admitted to a girl’s college. After the pre-degree course, I went to Tamil Nadu to study dentistry. I did not visit my home or Thrissur as I always feared the public. The shame of being Girija of the Girija Theatre was overwhelming. I had become a total introvert by then, with serious emotional issues. I had once attempted suicide after I was accused of a book theft at college.”

After she, along with her sister and mother, insisted, her father tried to rebrand the theatre and screen films which families could enjoy. “In 1998, when I got back from Tamil Nadu, we got Pranayavarnangal by Manju Warrier and played it at the theatre. The family audience, however, did not attend,” recalled Dr Girija.

Her tryst with destiny

In 2001, after her father Padmanabhan passed away, things started to get worse. A massive debt burdened the household. To add to their misery, the theatre was gutted in a fire in August 2006.

For Dr Girija and her sister Krishnapriya, it was a do-or-die battle. They were forced to file a lawsuit to defend their home from their uncles. As they got the theatre, and another adjoining building, which they later developed into a wedding hall, along with the house they lived in, she decided to reopen the theatre and remove the blot it had earned for them all.

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“My sister and I knew nothing about running a cinema hall. We started everything from the scratch, from applying for bank loans to getting the plans approved by the authorities. I was teaching at a dental college and my husband was abroad, yet I completed the (renovation) work by 2008,” Dr Girija said. However, not a single soul turned up at the renovated new-look Girija Theatre for the first show of Twenty: 20, starring Mohanlal and Mammootty.

Interestingly, the show gradually picked up and made the re-launch a success. Soon, the story of the ‘lady-doctor’ who fought back to save her family-owned theatre, which once ran “blue” films, hit the headlines. She became an icon of resilience both in the Malayalam media and in the public eye.

After relaunching the theatre, Dr. Girija had to wear many hats, from a ticket collector to a digital film operator. For instance, once the film operator got drunk and passed out just before the late night show, causing delay in the screening. “I went and got an operator’s licence myself,” Dr Girija said. In the process, she became the second women to get an operator’s licence in Kerala. On another occasion, when the cleaning staff did not turn up, she took up the broom and cleaned the theatre.

Spiral of cyber attacks

However, fame and success often come with the unfortunate consequence of attracting enemies with vested interests. Just last week, Dr. Girija found herself in the spotlight once again as she bravely spoke out about the ongoing online harassment she has endured over the past five years.

She found herself at the receiving end of cyber attacks in 2018 after she defied the diktats of some industry bigwigs. The attacks grew more severe after she added a ticketing feature to her social media platforms, bypassing booking websites.

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“My social media accounts and the theatre’s website, which allows for the online purchase of tickets, have both been suspended repeatedly, at least 12 times in the past few years, as a result of widespread complaints by unidentified people,” she alleged. She filed several complaints with the authorities concerned, to no avail. When she started using WhatsApp and Instagram for booking the shows, both her social media accounts were frequently suspended, even as she started receiving profane messages and threats.

“I believe someone in the film industry is trying to harm me. They perhaps view me as vulnerable. Distributors would not give me films to run in my theatre,” Dr. Girija said. She broke down on TV live, while talking about her project she considers a tribute to her late father.

An icon of resilience

Dr Girija has begun to receive widespread support after the show. A bunch of women, organised by some feminist groups, came to watch the show to support her. Actor Sharfuddin, who plays the lead in the film Madhura Manohara Moham, now showing at the theatre, paid a visit to the Girija Theatre to express solidarity with her. The Film Exhibitors United Organization of Kerala (FEUOK) has also decided to support her, even as the FEUOK filed a complaint with the Chief Minister’s Office.

The rigours of rebuilding her life and the theatre have taken a toll on Dr. Girija’s health. She is suffering from a serious skin disorder, which according to her, has exacerbated with the stress the constant cyber harassment has subjected her to. She used to teach oral pathology at the Al-Azhar Dental College at Kothamangalam in Ernakulam district before her illness got the better of her.

“I had to quit my job since, as a professor, I was unable to travel. The illness gets worse with stress. Now, with problems with the website and social media harassment, it has worsened,” said Dr Girija. But she has let none of the travails overtake her conviction and equanimity in thought and conduct.

“I do not want to beat anyone in business. That’s why I am not naming the guy who is behind all this. If I do so, he will be finished. But I just want to run my theatre decently,” said Dr. Girija, with righteous indignation of an entrepreneur who has the courage to fight against all odds.