Amrat Parmar

Birmingham

1961–2003

Amrat Parmar was born in Delhi in 1935. He worked as a tailor before migrating to Britain in 1961 with only £3. In an interview for ATV with the journalist Tony Maycock, Parmar said he and other Indian migrants were unable to migrate with more than £3 due to Indian government policies. In addition, he did not know English and enrolled in night classes soon after moving to Birmingham. He stayed with a relative and, as a qualified tailor, was able to begin working within a week of his arrival. Parmar saved the money he made as a tailor and secured a £2,000 bank loan to set up a drapery business. This was in Sparkbrook, an area of Birmingham where he also lived with his wife, Pushpa. A year after opening his business – which served local immigrant communities – Parmar was forced to close as he was outpriced by local supermarkets and could not afford to continue. However, whilst the business was open Parmar often placed adverts for properties to rent in his shop window, at the request of local South Asians who used his services. The popularity of this initiative motivated Parmar to turn to real estate as a potential area of business. He thus opened the estate agency Amrat Brothers, and his customers were primarily migrant South Asians.

Parmar’s next venture involved bringing South Asian films to immigrant communities in the Midlands. He noticed the popularity of cinemas that primarily served South Asian customers and decided to buy the Villa Cross Cinema in Handsworth to screen Indian films. Subsequently, Parmar set up his own film import company, which enabled him to purchase and distribute the newest Indian films across the UK. In 1974 he opened the popular Natraj Entertainment Complex, which was located on Leicester’s Belgrave Road. The complex cost £1 million to build and hosted two cinemas, a disco, bar, restaurant and live theatre. The complex served South Asian food and had a betel-leaf shop. In addition, it held a women-only showing on Thursdays. The combination of businesses in real estate and entertainment made Parmar among the wealthiest men in the Midlands.

The boom in cinema-going among South Asians in Britain, however, experienced a sharp decline by the early 1980s. The manager of Natraj Entertainment Complex, Hiro Masana, told ATV that video piracy had resulted in people stealing film prints from their offices or distributors and cheaply renting them at 70p per videotape for people to watch at home. The cinema, in comparison, sold tickets for £1.30 each, which was no longer economically worthwhile for customers. As a result of video piracy, the cinema lost £1,000 a week and between 1979 and 1980, the number of South Asian cinemas in Britain dropped from 150 to 35. The chain of cinemas owned by Amrat Parmar fell from ten locations to four within the same period. By the early 1980s the Natraj Entertainment Complex closed and was bought by the clothing store Sari Mandir.

Amrat Parmar died in Moseley, Birmingham on 28 April 2003.