India’s touring cinemas are dying, and being reborn

FOR MUCH OF the year Pusegaon, six or seven hours’ drive from Mumbai, is an unremarkable village of fewer than 10,000 people. But every winter its population swells several times over when it hosts a mela, or fair. Religion, commerce and entertainment meet at such fairs, which are common throughout India. In Pusegaon cattle traders show up, and so do pilgrims to the Sevagiri temple. There are Ferris wheels, food stalls and merchants hawking all manner of goods. When this correspondent visited in January 2002, there was also, by the banks of the Yerala river, an enormous red-and-white striped tent set up by one of India’s fabled travelling cinemas, Amar Touring Talkies.