The Kerala Theatres‘ “Lockdown” situation has taken a huge hit with a new environmental problem – Rain. Now, normally rain, even heavy rain is no reason to shut down cinema halls, but Kerala had a devastating 2018 with the heavy rains turning into floods, displacing, killing and injuring people while dealing in crores of property loss. The pattern has continued in the subsequent years, albeit on a smaller scale, but it has been a sure thing so far. And a few days ago, the Kerala State Government started sending out yellow, orange and red alerts to all districts within the state – preparing the local government, medical and first responder staff as well as the people for any imminent threat.
As you can see, in a situation such as this, especially with the state still dealing with the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, theatres and cinema halls are not ready to be opened yet. With 11 districts on orange alert for the next few days (the remaining three is on yellow alert), theatres could very well remain closed till the end of August. Here’s why.
The 2018 floods started in mid-July and ended in mid-August of the same year. The 2019 floods started in July and ended in September of 2019. Last year, the floods started and ended in August, but there were still almost three weeks of floods. That makes the 2019 floods the longest flood duration amongst the three, while the 2020 one, the shortest. But the floods still seem to stretch towards the end of August, which means the possible 2021 floods will stretch on into August and possibly even past that.
First, the Covid-19 pandemic happens. Then a delayed reopen (one of the last states to reopen in Kerala) in January 2021. Theatres stayed opened for three months but now they are reaching three months of lockdown period. And now the (possible) floods are coming. The past 15-16 months have not been good for Kerala theatres. And that is not even counting the flood periods which happened during the aforementioned dates.