Pila House (hybridisation of Play House) was marked as the entertainment
district by the British Government in 1857, the theatres surrounded on
one side by Kamathipura, the red light area, and on the other side, by
Congress House, the residence of traditional musicians and dancers,
including the much romanticised and much abused courtesans (tawaifs)-
all symbols of urbanisation and urbane entertainment at the beginning of
the 20thcentury.
These theatres transformed their fares from variety
entertainments to Parsee Theatre to silent cinema to talkies. As an
architectural piece of layered history, jostling for popular attention,
along with the flicks, are structures of religious sites (mazhars and
dargahs) in the same compound.
