Heart and Soul: A valentine to my hometown cinemas

The Kapitol used to be the biggest cinema in Sg Petani. Photo: Norman Yusoff

Whenever I go back to my hometown of Sungai Petani (SP), Kedah, I spend some time at my favourite old Chinese coffee shop located in the heart of the town. As I sit quietly while sipping a cup of kopi-O, I cannot help but feel a tinge of melancholy when I view (from inside the coffee shop) old cinema buildings that have died natural deaths at the hand of video tapes and VCDs.

Such reminiscence transports me back to my halcyon childhood days in SP when my late father and I would frequent the cinemas. However, when I reached 10, my outings to the cinema no longer had to be sanctioned by my father. At his insistence, I dared to go to the cinema alone. Since then, almost every weekend I found an escape in the fantasy world of films in order to temporarily stave off real-world miseries (read: school homework pending).