Mumbai, Aug 13 - The first day of restrictions in Mumbai on account of swine flu started Thursday with the usual crowds of office-goers, the familiar rush in suburban trains and traffic jams on roads. Only school buses and schoolchildren were conspicuously absent.

In the monsoon season, students have got a weeklong break from school and college, thanks to swine flu that has claimed 14 lives in Maharashtra so far, two of them in Mumbai. Theatres and multiplexes here have been closed for four days.

On Thursday, very few people exercised precaution like wearing ordinary but colourful face masks. Some tied handkerchiefs on their faces, some women used dupattas or scarves.

The majority merely gave them curious glances and nothing more.

'Getting a mask is a major problem in Mumbai. I prefer to tie my dupatta, it's multi-layered and colourful and I am confident it can keep swine flu germs and even pollution at bay,' said Mubaraka Kinariwala, a working woman who commutes by local trains.

Seema Thakar, a web-designer from Borivali, said: 'Mumbaikars are tough and hardy. They have been through so my crises in the past, swine flu is just one more. They take everything in their stride and go about their routine.'

Gloom, however, pervades the 100 multiplexes and around 90 single-screen cinema halls, which have been shut down till Sunday.

The cinema halls wore a deserted look, barring people who turned up to get a refund on their bookings during the four-day period of the ban.

'In view of the long, festive weekend and also since the mid-term examinations are over in schools, we had done very good bookings for 'Kaminey' and 'Life Partner'. Now that's gone down the drain,' said M.A. Padhye, manager of Jaya cinema, Borivali.

Now, the two new movies shall hit the screens only Aug 20, but Padhye doesn't expect good bookings in view of the Ramadan month and Ganesh festival that begin next week.

Ajit Singh, box-office head of Sona Gold cinema in the western suburbs, said apart from giving refunds on bookings, the theatre managements would re-issue tickets to those patrons wanting to come at a later date.