Adhi Potoba

Once upon a time Pune was a small town with cute little houses. The traffic was manageable. The air was breathable air. And roads had no dividers. Fergusson college road was a beautiful street lined with Banyan trees and pretty much everything else was hunky dory. Much unlike the awful shit storm that FC Road has become today. A few things however have remained unchanged there. One of them, much to my delight, is a restaurant called Amrapli. As far back as I can remember, Amrapali was the place to go to for vegetarian fare. It is located off Fergusson College Road at the end of an access road right behind Hotel Roopali. It is very easy to miss as the only indication is a beaten up cantilevered neon sign, which must’ve worked at some point in time. A bicycle repair shop on one side and a scooter garage on the other guard the entrance to the access road. The entrance also featured a Lambretta , which I guess no one had claimed for decades, rusted and sunk half way into the ground. The le...

Long before Bhandarkar Road was mauled by malls, there was only one block with any commercial activity on the entire 1 km strip. It was the block opposite Sane Dairy and consisted of 6 completely unrelated stores. A food store named Ruchira. A tea house the name of which escapes me. A store that was split into two smaller businesses: M/s Joshi (the granary) and Snacks (the grocery). The Prince laundry. And then there was a bicycle repair shop and a car garage. In spite of this weird juxtaposition they all served the community in perfect harmony. Ruchira was the new kid on the block and had added a few extra items to his daily inventory to compete with the older, well known Snacks. The owner of Ruchira was a generously proportioned man with pitch black skin (and only partially visible at night), with an extremely cheery disposition. He would wave to you from behind the register whether you knew him or not. His offerings in terms of fresh ready-to-eat foods were very humble. A tray each ...