It was an unplanned detour that started the whole thing. On a lazy winter afternoon in January 2019, photographer Hemant Chaturvedi walked over to Allahabad University, an architectural landmark from the 1800s in the northern Indian city, to take a few images. En route, he remembered that there was an old, single-screen movie theater in the area. That’s how he ended up at Lakshmi Talkies, an Art Deco–styled cinema from the 1930s. Dilapidated after closing in 1999, the forlorn building was strewn with garbage and set to be demolished to…
