Spy Plane Crew Returns to U.S. (in National News) Go Your Own Way: Freelancing and independent contract work (in Business) Hot'n'Sour Dish: Japan's Ringu rings eerie bells (in A&E) Emil Amok: Superpowers and superstars, Filipino-crucifixion-style (in Opinion)

You Want Butter with Your Naan?

Shiraz Jivani, owner of Naz8 Cinema in Fremont, poses with reels of Bollywood hits. Photo by Paul Chinn / S.F.Examiner.

America’s first Asian cinema megaplex enjoys success through service

By Neela Banerjee

For only $8, at the Naz 8 Cinema in Fremont, you get transported to another world. Inside, the lobby is plastered with brightly colored Hindi movie posters featuring Bollywood’s finest staring down at you: Shar Rukh Khan’s blow-dried hair, Hriktik Roshan’s huge arms, Rekha’s kohl-lined eyes. Next to those, you’ll find banners for Silicon Valley enterprises that specialize in Indian and Pakistani sundries. At the huge concession stand, you can get the date package — a large popcorn and two drinks — for just $2.95. Or you could go for the naan and lamb plate for $3.95. You can choose to see the classic Indian melodrama of Zubeidaa, or American Desi, a comedy about an Indian American coming to terms with his identity.

For more information: http://www.naz8.com phone: 510.797.2000 Naz8 is located at: 39400 Argonaut Way Fremont, CA 94538

Open since 1999, the Naz 8 bills itself as “the Nation’s first multicultural entertainment megaplex,” playing movies from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Taiwan and Korea. In a time when multiplexes are closing down left and right, the Naz 8 Cinema has found success by going after the Asian American demographic — a population that increasingly is helping to define the nation. California is a prime example. According to the Indian Consulate in San Francisco, there are over 110,000 Indians in the Bay Area. Some Fremont schools are reporting a 61 percent Asian American population.

With a mix of old-world hospitality and high-tech luxury, the Naz 8 could be seen as the future of the entertainment industry.

Of course, there is also the booming Indian film industry. Based in Bombay, aka Bollywood, the movie machine churns out over 800 films a year. Most of the movies stick to formulaic plots with lots of song and dance and epic melodrama, but it seems to work.

Owner Shiraz Jivani will tell you that his success is really about two things: fate and customer service.

“Rule No. 1 is that if the customer comes to you, any complaint he has, the customer is always right,” Jivani said from behind the cluttered desk of his large office, upstairs at the Naz. “If rule No. 1 doesn’t apply — go to rule No. 2, which is: the customer is always right.”

Jivani was born in Kenya, raised in Pakistan; and came to the United States in 1969. He went from Napa Junior College to earn an accounting degree at Golden Gate University, to a master’s in business from Stanford University, to a law degree from Hastings Law College. An entrepreneur at heart, Jivani helped open a restaurant in Fisherman’s Wharf in 1975. Then, he went on to run a number of hotels and motels around San Francisco. Eventually, Jivani bought and managed a sport’s bar in Sunnyvale, which he successfully ran for 14 years.

“Then I married a movie buff named Naz,” Jivani said. “Because she loved Indian movies so much, as a gift to her, I thought I would try this out.”

In early 1992, Jivani and his wife came to an old theater, located on Fremont Boulevard in Fremont, to see the Bollywood hit Lamhe, staring Sridevi and Anil Kapoor. People were lined up down the street and security was turning people away at the door. Jivani couldn’t believe it.

“I was completely blown away by the Indian market at that point,” he said. “I thought, if there are this many Indians in the Bay Area, chances are, we can open a theater that will run seven days a week.”

Jivani’s father had been in the theater business back in Pakistan, so he had grown up knowing about the technical and business aspects of the trade. The same day he went to see Lamhe, he approached the theater’s owner to see what he could do.

“I said, ‘My wife likes the place and anything she puts her hand on, I like to buy for her,’” Jivani remembered.

A Landmark Opens

At that time, the single screen, 722-seat theater had an old-fashioned mono speaker sound system, and Jivani saw that it could use a lot of improvements. The owner was showing second-run movies and occasional foreign films for second-run prices.

“She asked me what I knew about the movie business, and I said, ‘I probably know more than you do,’” Jivani said. “Every business has its secrets. I’ve had 13 or 14 theaters open in front of me, but a cinema is like chemistry. There are angles and secrets to this trade. If you cover these angles, you’ll be successful, no question. But if someone who is making tandoor tries to run a cinema, it’s not going to come out.”

While Jivani was in negotiations with the owner, he did some research. He flew to New York and London to meet with major Indian movie distributors, and saw exactly what movies were scheduled to come out and what it would take to get them. Eventually, the deal went through, and the Naz opened its doors on Thanksgiving of 1992.

“For the first two years, it was very difficult. Because people were so used to watching videos, they didn’t know the difference,” Jivani said. “People were so into videos at that time, if people could pay $1 to see the latest movie, why would they pay $6 to see it here?”

Jivani estimated that he lost about $100,000 in the first year. He set out to change the video-watching culture. He changed the ligth fixtures in the theater to make it a brighter, cleaner picture. He added a Dolby sound system and spent a lot on advertising.

“There was no show in the Bay Area where you wouldn’t see my guys handing out flyers. I must have distributed more than 200,000 flyers,” Jivani said. “Once I did that, there was no looking back.”

Drawing people in at $1 a head for three months at a time, Jivani managed to build up a core audience. Then, things really took off. When famed filmmaker Subhash Ghai’s Pardesh brought in packed houses, Jivani chalked it up to summertime and an especially good movie. Some 28,000 people saw that movie during the summer of 1997. When the next Ghai movie, Taal, continued to pack houses every night — Jivani realized he needed a bigger theater.

Bigger is Better

The Naz 8 opened in November of 1999, with full Dolby sound systems and more Bollywood hits bringing people in. Now, Jivani seems to have the power to make or break new releases.

Deep Katdare and Purva Bedi, the stars of American Desi, spent the whole day at the Naz 8 a few Sundays ago. They signed autographs and attended every screening of the film to answer questions. Jivani went through a roll of pictures from the event: he and the stars, his staff and the stars, a little girl with Katdare.

“You see, her father knows me and said that his daughter wanted to meet the star, so I set it up, let them come up to my office and take pictures,” Jivani said.

American Desi, a small independent film, finished in the top twenty box office returns the first week it opened. At the Naz 8, over 11,000 people came to see it.

“I literally gave them back the cost of the movie in one weekend,” Jivani said. “I insisted they come up here for that reason.”

Unfortunately, American Desi was pirated and DVD and VHS copies have diminished the crowds by up to 20 percent, according to Jivani. This is a continuing problem with the Indian film industry, but Jivani fights back by attracting audiences with top quality service.

“If you show people a good quality thing, they will come back,” Jivani said. “This is where my competition fails. They underestimate their patrons. Lately, the people in the Bay Area who are Indian, Pakistani, Afghani, they are very educated. They can tell the difference between good and bad.”

Jivani said that seven or eight theaters have tried to compete with him, but they often open in bad neighborhoods where the rent is cheap, and they don’t do any upgrades.

A Social Hub

The vibrant atmosphere is another key to Jivani’s success. He claims that people sometimes come to see a movie and end up just talking in the lobby, meeting old friends.

Said Jivani: “I don’t play the role of a matchmaker, but I have had people come to me. This girl’s parents know me, or this boy’s parents, and they ask me: Shiraz Bhai [brother], would you mind? And I let them come up here to the office, if they want, and talk, get acquainted.”

Jivani said he trains his staff to be particularly friendly — most of the 27-member crew are recent Indian or Pakistani immigrants.

“When I first bought this theater from General Cinema, I kept on a lot of the staff because they knew the ins-and-outs of this huge place, but they all had kind of an attitude toward Indians, and I said, ‘Look, you’re not going to make it here,’ ” Jivani said. “That’s the last thing I wanted to do — own an Indian cinema and discriminate against Indians. Forget it.”

Eventually, Jivani replaced most of the staff. Accusations of discrimination ensued. The theater was even egged and vandalized. But, to him, it was an important business decision that couldn’t be reversed.

Saif Ahmed, the senior-most member of Jivani’s staff, began working at the Naz soon after arriving from India. He said he looked into the job after attending a film, and worked full-time for seven months after that.

“I did not expect to find something like this here,” the 21-year old Chabot College student said. “It is a good job because there are so many people here on weekends that it keeps you busy.”

Jivani is planning to open more multiplexes across the country. He is waiting for his newborn daughter to get a little older, so his wife can help him run the business.

In the meantime, the Naz 8 continues to draw huge crowds.

Srinivasan Rao, 28, and Mohan Kishore, 27, were both waiting to see Rahul last Sunday. Both agreed most of the movies they’ve seen lately are the usual big Bollywood productions. But they still keep coming back anyway.

“We come here pretty much every weekend,” Rao, a dot-com worker who moved to San Jose from India a year ago, said.

Added Kishore: “It’s very similar to being at home.”