Shah Rukh Khan fans at a cinema in Bhubaneswar to catch a first day show of Chennai Express on Friday.

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 9: A health care group has boarded the Chennai Express to create awareness on cleft lip. The film starring Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone has opened to an overwhelming response here.

Distributed in Odisha by Rajdhani films, Chennai Express has released in more than 100 theatres in the state with around 400 shows. The mood among SRK fans in the capital was upbeat on Friday with hundreds of them queuing up for tickets.

The film had a preview at INOX — city’s only multiplex — with six shows being screened on Thursday. At present, it is running 15 shows a day at its three screens with B.A. Pass getting a solitary slot in the morning. While the occupancy was 88 per cent on Thursday, it climbed to 92 per cent till Friday evening.

A still from the movie. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Except for Ravi Talkies, all single-screen theatres are running four or five shows of the film. “With Friday being a holiday for Id and the weekend ahead, we are expecting a huge turnout. Besides, no other Hindi or Odia film was released today. The real test of the film will be the weekdays,” said said Bijendra Mohanty, president of the Odisha Cinema Hall Owners’ Association.

A group of young doctors, in association with some health-care professionals, have booked 500 seats in Maharaja Talkies for the matinee show on Sunday. A part of the ticket cost will be set aside for awareness on cleft lip. Cleft lip is a congenital deformity, often considered a curse, which can be corrected through surgery.

The tickets of this show will be sold for Rs 200. Half the amount will be paid to the theatre owner, while the remaining will be spent to identify cleft lip patients in rural pockets of the state. There will also be three slide shows on cleft lips during the film screening. The group will serve refreshments to the viewers.

“Under the aegis of Odisha Cleft and Cranio-facial Research Foundation, we are organising regular camps in the rural pockets to identify patients with cleft lips. Although we get funds from many international agencies for the surgeries, there are many other complicated deformities that are also treated by our team. The modest collection from the film ticket costs will help us address the additional needs of such patients,” said Ramanupam Tripathy, a city-based dental and maxilo-facial surgeon.

The initial phase of their campaign will be organised at camps in Nayagarh and Mayurbhanj districts to detect cleft lip cases. Cleft lip corrective operations can be performed on anyone between three months and 70 years.

“The funding agencies only provide money to get the surgeries done, but for detecting patients through camps in rural areas, their transport, stay and clothes, we need funds. The collection from the show will help fund these aspects,” said Tripathy, lead surgeon of the group, who, along with senior dental surgeon Sobhan Mishra, has performed nearly 5,000 cleft lip surgeries.

“We have already purchased vehicles to carry out our campaign on cleft lip awareness in Odisha. We have chosen Chennai Express to raise money since many of our team members have had spent a part of their lives in Chennai as students. During the show, we want to sensitise the viewers so that they will help us identify more cleft lip patients,” said chairman of the foundation Dillip Kumar Pattanayak.