Adhi Potoba

Saras Baug is quite possibly the biggest garden in Pune City. Together with the temple, the sad excuse for a zoo that is Peshwe Park and the open ground that is used for firework sales as well as India’s biggest classical music festival Savai Gandharva , Saras Baug could have it’s own pin code. My favourite part of Saras Baug is the Ganesh temple part. Situated on a small hillock and surrounded by an artificial moat it houses the beautiful Saras Baug temple at the summit. The moat is surrounded by hundreds of acres of lush green lawns and unimpressive yet charming topiary. When I used to go to Saras Baug for Chaturthi with my mother, I would notice many young couples taking care of business behind the trees. I guess it’s hard to ‘get a room’ when you’re living as a joint family in a tiny one bedroom flat. It was pretty amazing how everyone pretty much ignored the cuddling and fondling couples. The couples returned the favour by pretending no one else existed. Especially giggling, un...

Back in the 1970s in Pune, Borawke’s KuKu Ch Koo was the god of all things tandoori. It is still by far the tastiest tandoori chicken I have tasted in Pune. The first KuKu Ch Koo, and the only one I have ever been to, is situated on the Deccan end of JM Road. Nestled cozily between two sugarcane juice bars and directly opposite the P.M.T. bus depot it is at a prime location for the Deccan junta. The restaurant is very basic in design. It consists of two structures. A solitary concrete room is the management office. A shed opposite to it, open on all sides, houses the tandoor ovens. The rest of the restaurant is open to sky with seating consisting of cracked granite squares placed on cinder blocks for tables and plastic chairs around it. Hey, why waste on décor if they keep returning? The only way to tell the waiters from the general customer was the indifferent attitude, as they didn’t really have any uniform. Actually, KuKu Ch Koo was always self-service but there were always a number...

Mutton Rassa (Maharashtrian lamb curry) was probably the first food I knew I couldn't live without. Especially the way my mother makes it. My grandmother, my mother and all my aunts would make their own garam masala. Although my grandma has passed away, her memory still lives on every time I cook something as my garam masala still comes from home. I have had Mutton Rassa all over Pune, but only the Parsi restaurants do real justice to the Rassa part of it. Although it has been 10 long years since I've been to Cafe Good Luck on Fergusson College Rd, I still remember the L shaped restaurant where time seems to have stood still. It has withstood many a communal riot that required reconstruction for other Parsi establishments. The entrance of Good Luck, the apex of the L, is at the corner of Bhandarkar Rd and Fergusson College Rd. One wing of the L extends into the dining area, the other is only for tea & pastry consumption. I remember the slightly bent old man who used to si...

If you grew up in Pune you’d remember of a mildly annoying siren that would go off at 10:00 a.m. every day and last for a good 10 minutes. I never figured out what it was for, where it came from or if anyone was supposed to do anything about it. We just knew that it was there and we ignored it, much like the coloured ‘Terror Alert System" compliments of the Department of Homeland Security. The one thing I can always remember about it though was that when the ‘bhonga’ (as it was called) would go off aayi would be making her dabba of chapatis for the day. And during the holidays my brother and I would sit cross-legged on the cold floor of our humble dining-table-less kitchen and wait for aayi to give us a hot chapati slathered with some ghee and sugar and rolled up on dented steel plates. After a generous helping of chapati rolls, all young members of the galli would then emerge from their respective homes. for a good day of galli cricket. I have tried recreate that taste at home ma...

Like any big art school my alma mater gave India many successful artists, sculptors, architects and creative directors. Of course, it wasn’t enough to be at par with everyone else, so Abhinav Kala Mahavidyalaya gave us something no other art school has produced—the deadliest gang of serial killers in the history of Pune city. Jakkal, Sutar, Shah and Jagtap were students of the commercial arts stream, the same major that produced the lack luster career of yours truly. The four went on a killing spree for 14 months between Jan 1976 and March 1977. Being evil is one this, but being stupid and evil just isn’t a good trait to have. The four were finally apprehended as suspicions arose when the foursome went and inquired about the progress of the investigation at police stations one time too many. The first victim of the infamous foursome was Prakash Hegde, the son of the owner of a small hotel, Vishwa. Situated behind the college. Prakash’s murder was the only claim to fame for this otherwi...

Hostelites, especially males, living in the Deccan area were really lucky to have the Lucky restaurant. Situated in the prime location of Deccan Gymnkhana, between Hong Kong lane and the Champion sports shop, it proudly served most of the Fergusson, B.M.C.C and M.E.S Garware college students. Of course, it was a popular dining spot for families, too. The structure of the restaurant was very similar to Café Good Luck, the other Irani restaurant on the block. It was divided into two sections. One served tea and snacks. And the other was for dining and families. Dining at Lucky (or Good Luck for that matter) took you back into the sixties. Mostly because it hadn’t been redecorated since the sixties. The design of the Formica on the tables was a mere suggestion of what it may have looked like 3 decades ago. The surface of most tables was so worn out that there were huge black spots caused by wear and tear. There were areas of the walls with extensive water damage and the ones that didn’t w...

In spite of being situated in Satara district, Puneites claim the hill stations of Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani as if it were their own back yard. My first trip to Mahabaleshwar (or Mabby as the wannabe cool kids called it) was in 1980 at a ripe old age of 10. It was fascinating to see streets full of pretty much every kind of berry , honey and jam stores , swarms of monkeys , and vagabonds from Bombay and Pune trying to act extra cool. Equally fascinating were guys pretending to be expert horseback riders in the area around Venna lake , trying to impress women that were more interested in gnawing at their ‘ bhutta ’ (roasted corn on the cob) than any dude on a horse that can drop at any minute. Note to the ladies: Bhutta teeth is not a great look. There are a couple of cool places in Mahabaleshwar though. The shopping street, the horse rides everywhere. And what is the deal with those burnt Mahabaleshwar walking sticks? We were living at a Parsi hotel called Race View. (I have been t...