NEW DELHI : It had been just a few days that Muzaffarnagar’s Maya Palace had invested close to ₹2 crore to add a second auditorium to its single screen property, before the coronavirus rose to alarming levels.
Tiger Shroff’s action thriller Baaghi 3 had just started to set the cash registers ringing in the small Uttar Pradesh town when its run came to an abrupt halt, after cinema operations were suspended due to the pandemic.
Maya is only one of the many single screen theatres in India that have not just fought a battle with plush and powerful multiplexes for equal rights but are in for bleak times ahead as salaries and fixed expenses mount, with no foreseeable income in the near future.