Thing have changed

I did my graduation from Pune, moved to Delhi, switched job and it has been eighteen months since I have been back to Pune. During my graduation I used to spend a lot of time at Deccan (Let's just say FC road and JM road because they had the coolest outlets where I could eat and hottest babes to stare). Anyway that was long time back and during the last eighteen months I have visited FC and JM road two or three times.

Today I had a day off and was bored at home. Since I had nothing to do, I decided to visit the place I love the most in Pune i.e. Alka talkies. Alka talkies is my favorite cinema hall in Pune. During my graduation days I have spend more time in it than attending college lectures. It is my favorite cinema hall because it always screens English movies and hence, so few people watch it that every show is like a private show.

I reached Alka talkies and found the next show was after one hour. This meant I had lots of time to walk around my favorite area and check what changes had occurred. The first thing I noticed that the Maharastrain restaurant in front of Alka talkies had closed. It offered one of the best Maharastrain thali at a very reasonable cost and so my plans for having a good Maharastrain lunch were destroyed.

Few steps away from the Maharastrain restaurant was an Iranian restaurant. Its food was ok but it served one of the best Pineapple juices in Pune. I had a look at the restaurant and realized it was no more an Iranian restaurant. Dejected, I decided to walk more to find out how many more in-the-budget-of-a-college-student eateries had closed.

I looked at few places and found out indeed Pune had changed a lot since I completed my graduation. Although I didn’t found any newly constructed mall, I found out that most of the big brands were now present on the roads that once offered value for money food to a college student. The only thing that had not changed was Amrutalyas.

In Pune, Amrutalyas mean tea stall and I spotted almost most of them still existed and were doing business. This was a surprise after seeing that my favorite Maharashtrain restaurant had shut shop and an Iranian restaurant had changed itself to become a just another restaurant.

However, the biggest surprise I had was when I a spotted a Ras Kendra. In Pune, Ras Kendra means a shop selling sugarcane juice. This is not a season when sugarcane is available and here, right next to Vijay Talkies a Ras Kendra was offering sugarcane juice during an off season.

I walked into the Ras Kendra, ordered a jumbo glass, took a sip and felt this is one shop which should have closed down. I don’t know how this shop is surviving because when I paid the Ras Kendra guy Rs. 10 for my jumbo glass, he signaled towards God as if he was saying thanks for the  first customer of the day.

I had spend the last 45 mins on my favorite streets finding out none of my favorite things existed anymore and decided to head towards the Alka talkies to enjoy the day as I did during my college days. I entered Alka talkies and found it was showing Knight and day. I am not a fan of Tom Cruise or Cameron Diaz but I am an Alka talkies fan and hence I decided to watch it.

The management of Alka talkies had put posters of Knight and day opposite to the ticket window. I had a look at the posters and realized the movie being screened was a dubbed version of Knight and day. Fuck. My favorite English movie theater to survive was now showing dubbed movies. Pune had definitely changed a lot in the last few years.

I reached the ticket counter and bought a balcony ticket. It was priced Rs 45. I don’t remember the earlier tickets rates but I am sure the first movie I ever saw in this theater’s balcony was Terminator 3 and after that I had decided it will be my last movie in this theater’s balcony.  It was not that I couldn’t afford a balcony ticket; it was just that as a student you really don't care how comfortable the seats are.

I took my ticket, went to the canteen, bought an overpriced Thumps up and started watching the movie. I was not at all nostalgic. It was the same old bad theatre but I was not the same guy. Things had changed. The price of the ticket was Rs 45 and the auto in which I had come had charged me more than double of it. As a student you just want to have fun but as a person with a job, you want the best want can come in your budget.

I watched the movie, came out of the hall and checked time. 4:00 pm. This meant I still had lots of time to kill. As I was going out, I saw the poster of the next movie. It said – Disney Jadogaro ka Sangram. Nicklos Cage hai jadugaro ke jadugar. With a title like this, I had to watch the movie. So I bought another balcony ticket and watched it.

To sum up

Balcony ticket = Rs 45, one Thumps Up = Rs 18, watching movie in your college days favorite fatichar theater = priceless.