donations by the Fords, Rockefellers, or Gateses, but they were still critically important for feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and housing the poor. They also reinforced the conviction that financial success came with communal obligations. Many of the first public hospitals, clinics, and maternity wards in East Africa were built and endowed by successful South Asians, as were some of the best public libraries, the first universities and preschools, sports stadiums, social halls, cultural centers, and public parks. In many instances, these institutions were the first of their kind serving all, regardless of race, religion, or class.13 By making charitable gifts, endowing public institutions, and supporting critical social welfare institutions, individuals and families displayed their wealth, demonstrated their generosity, and enhanced their own social standing as patriarchs and communal elders. Through generous giving, they acquired blessings in the afterlife and social power in the here and now.
Cinemas were certainly not charities like orphanages or medical clinics, but they were nonetheless treasured gifts to the community: they healed souls, opened minds, and provided aesthetic and emotional nourishment for old and young alike. They were, to be sure, businesses first and foremost. But investing in a business enterprise that simultaneously provided a social good was a culturally and historically specific ideal of prudent spending. The men who built East Africa’s cinemas were typically of much more modest means than those who endowed the universities and hospitals, yet in giving what they could, they too sought to endow their communities with cultural facilities. Cinemas were also frequently given over to charity organizations for fund-raising events, further demonstrating the owners’ commitment to philanthropy. As early as 1920, for example, Jariwalla was dedicating the proceeds from various evening shows to charity, a tradition that was followed by proprietors up through the 1980s. Exhibitors were also known to dedicate proceeds to fledgling political parties or public institutions, including the police, schools, and sports teams. In addition, owners and managers frequently allowed local social groups to utilize their facilities rent-free for music, dance, and theatrical shows.14 Charitable donations enhanced the personal and institutional bonds between theaters and the people of the town.
PROJECTING MODERNITY, TECHNOLOGICAL SOPHISTICATION, AND COSMOPOLITAN CULTURAL STYLE
The social capital that came from having a cinema accrued to the community at large as well as to the proprietor. One recurring theme across the hundreds of interviews conducted for this project was that having a cinema of any kind, especially one as beautiful and impressive as the Royal, dramatically enhanced the cachet of a town and, by extension, the prestige of its people. Haji Gora Haji, a poet and film fan from Zanzibar who worked as a sailor on a jahazi (sail-powered cargo boat) in his younger days, described the status he and his crewmates enjoyed as Zanzibaris when they docked in “sleepy backwater towns” along the coast where few had ever witnessed the wonders of moving pictures. The two main islands comprising the Zanzibar archipelago, Unguja and Pemba, boasted six cinemas during much of Haji’s life, making it the equivalent of a regional cultural Mecca.15 Coming from a place with so many cinemas also gave young, economically poor but culturally rich Zanzibaris, Haji among them, artistic license to weave enraptured tales of evenings at the moving pictures for adoring crowds—tales that allegedly inspired others to stow away onboard boats headed to Zanzibar.16
Like picture palaces erected elsewhere in the world, the architecturally opulent theaters built in East Africa were intended to serve as spectacles and as sources of visual pleasure in and of themselves. At a time when the vast majority of Tanzanians lived in mud-and-wattle homes and almost no one had electricity, entering such a monument to modernity thrilled patrons nearly as much as the film entertained them. Going inside these glorious buildings evoked luxury and delight. As one woman said of the cinema in Tanga, “The Majestic was a classy theater, a truly chic, modern space. You felt elegant simply going in. Everyone dressed in their best clothes. You wanted to dress up, dress for your part, because the theater was such an elegant place.”17 Remarking on the Majestic Cinema in Zanzibar, one man recalled, “The building itself was astonishing, truly modern. When it opened our whole neighborhood felt proud. It was really something to be able to say you lived next door to the Majestic.”18 Another man made similar comments about the opening of the Sultana Cinema at the other end of town. “I was only a dockhand at the port, a day-laborer. You know, a man of little consequence or stature,” he said. “But I remember when the cinema opened and my son was so proud. He kept telling all his friends that his father worked next door to the cinema [laughing]. It was like I built the place or something.”19 The general public claimed cinemas as their own and drew personal pride from their affiliation.
The architectural grandeur and names of the cinemas built in the first half of the twentieth century articulated the owners’ perception of their towns’ parity with cultural capitals across the world, as well as their commitment to enhancing residents’ stature as fully engaged cosmopolitans and discerning cultural connoisseurs. Names such as the Globe, the Empire, the Alexandra, and the Metropole captured this sense of global cosmopolitan connection. The name Majestic was given to several picture palaces built along the coast, communicating each benefactor’s sense of the grand, dignified, and aesthetically sumptuous contribution his theater made to the town. Paradise too was a popular name, evoking the heavenly, delightful nature of the experience afforded patrons once they stepped inside. There was also the Regal, the Empress, the Sultana, and the Elite. Proprietors and citizens alike had strong feelings that the names given to local theaters needed to convey the splendor and importance of the buildings and of the people who lived nearby or went inside.20 In the early twentieth century, East Africans who patronized theaters such as the Royal, the Empire, or the Majestic suffered no illusions of inferiority or backwardness, and indeed, the owners and managers of these fine picture palaces did all they could to ensure that the patrons in their towns, no matter how big or small, felt thoroughly “first class” while they were at the show.
The white colonial elites were just as proud to have a theater in their town or territory. The British resident of Zanzibar was obviously inspired by the opportunity to draw plans for the Royal, and he proudly attended the grand opening and made a habit of treating visiting dignitaries to a film. Zanzibar may have been just a small crumb in the great scheme of the British Empire, but it was the only place between Egypt and South Africa with a picture palace in 1921.21 When Jariwalla’s second picture palace, the Empire, debuted in Dar es Salaam in 1929, it was opened by the governor of Tanganyika, who entered on a red carpet to the applause of white dignitaries and the fanfare of the army band. Colonial officials took delight in cutting the ribbons at cinema openings, and press coverage of these events was extensive. Film screenings were also big events for the European community. The Tanganyika Standard covered one such event at the Avalon in Dar es Salaam in 1946. Attended by the governor of Tanganyika, the screening was described as “the most brilliant social function held in the center of town for many years.”22 A few years later when the Avalon was refurbished, the mayor spoke at the grand reopening, noting how venues like the Avalon provided him and others with an immense sense of civic pride. White journalists frequently emphasized how these modern cinemas served as proof of the tangible rewards of colonial development
Figure 1.3 Christmas/New Year’s greeting card from colonial Zanzibar. From the personal collection of Asad Talati
Tanzania exhibitors continually strove to enhance the physical pleasure of patrons and improve the associated pleasures afforded to passersby. Jariwalla’s first effort to update his khaki tents in Zanzibar came in the form of Cinema ya Bati, a permanent structure built of corrugated tin. The building, which had previously served as a potter’s warehouse, was located on the poor side of town, across the bridge from the central market, in Ng’ambo (literally meaning “the other side”). The building was more permanent than a tent but far from regal. Inside, it was stifling hot during most of the year, and patrons sat on the floor. This was a step up from a tent—but only a small one. Jariwalla knew he and
