Adhi Potoba

Shivaji Market situated a few blocks to the south of Main Street, is the centre for all things meat in Pune and the central wholesale market for meat, poultry and seafood in the city. This is the place you’d go to if you wanted the freshest and the best meats. Most families serious about their non-veg get their meats from here and every family has their favourite vendor who apparently has the ‘best’ meat or fish. Getting is from someone else is tantamount to throwing money down the drain. Shivaji Market is probably one of the smelliest places in the city and not the prettiest of places. It has four major sections—poultry, meat (mostly lamb), fish and vegetable. It is very colourful, full of character (and characters) and a photographers dream. A late uncle of mine had an obsession with buying the freshest meat. The meat trucks delivered the meat around 7:00 p.m. He would go the market around 7:00 and hang out in the smelly gala (stall) with our family butcher. He would then order some...

When I was young the Deccan Gymkhana area was filled with Brahmins who crossed the river from the old city and settled in and around what is now Erandwane. We had one such senior Puneite who lived in our lane. He was by all means a sweet and kind old man with some solid 60s fashion. He was a very close friend of the family as well and he taught us many useless things that only old people can. My fondest memory of him is watching him eat his daily alphonso during mango season. Every afternoon after his lunch he would lay a newspaper on the ota (stone platform) outside his house. He would then sit with a ripe alphonso mango, a glass of water wearing and a pair of scissors wearing his striped blue pajamas and a sleeveless t-shirt that was once white. Slowly he would begin devouring the alphonso, enjoying every bite to the fullest till he reached the pit. He would then proceed to suck it dry till it could be sucked no more. This is when it got interesting. He would then place the mango on ...

In my entire time in Pune city, the only place that came close to delivering a delicious mouth-watering sandwich that could rival Marzorin, was Jaws. Anyone who has lived in Pune in the 90s can remember Jaws. If you weren’t a vegetarian, you couldn’t go to Camp without at least considering if there was a possibility of a sandwich at Jaws. Jaws was famous for being the first place in Pune that served a real grilled beef burger. It was run by a couple of fresh graduates in an old British Raj style bungalow that looked like it was once army property. The restaurant wasn’t really part of the bungalow and was situated in the verandah. The seating was on concrete benches haphazardly scattered across the dusty parking area, Western music playing on loudspeakers that clearly couldn’t handle the sound. There was a room with a table tennis table where one could play for a token fee although no one went there to play. It was all about the burgers and the best chicken roll you ever had. Great burg...

Pune being the educational capital of India, everyone had in their friend’s circle a group of out station students who had come to for a better education, especially during their college years. Of course choosing my group of friends to hang out with proved that no amount of education can improve poor judgment. Most of my out station friends were as good in the kitchen as Maninder Singh in his early years with the bat. On the positive side, you’d always have a group ready to go on a culinary adventure. Although, these kids mostly had their list of staples they’d visit and order the same thing day after day. On Deccan Gymnkhana , behind Karachi Sweet Mart and a few waves short of being immersed in the Mutha river , there was restaurant by the name on Purab . A basically non-descript restaurant that served Punjabi as well as South Indian foods. Purab was a favourite of one of my friends and he had a standard order—Paneer Bhurji with 3 rotis. I remember sitting across the table and wat...

I grew up on Prabhat Road in nicer times; when the air SPM index was way below 100. Breathing was easier, washing hands didn’t make the sink muddy and Deccan Gymnkhana was the shopping area for fresh fruit and vegetables in addition to sundries. Vegetable shops ranged from huge fruit and vegetable stalls to small ones, like women sitting on a damp jute rag with small portions of cilantro or pieces of young coconut for 25 Paise each. The most interesting shops were on the side where Karve Rd met Prabhat Rd. There were 3 levels of shops / vendors on this street. The concrete shops starting with the Oil Depot at the apex, Vrindavan which was once a tea house, the school (Shishu Vihar) in the middle of nowhere, followed again by some oil depots, grain shops and then the Central Book House which never sold a book you actually could use. After the concrete shops was a layer of semi-permanent low-level shops that sold anything from bangles to brooms to poorly made plastic items. On the next l...

Schools in Pune organized “Fancy Fetes” as a means of raising much needed funds. My alma mater would raise more money in 3 days with a fete than it could with the meager alms received through ZP funding in a year. The maths for this was simple. Host a huge fair on the school grounds by asking students to contribute as well as sell raffle tickets and massive corporate sponsorships would fill the void. Parents would be asked to volunteer their services in supervising the student run stalls of games or refreshments. For a college student, the most important part of going to a school fete was the large collection of young women and supporting schools was as far from anyone’s mind as could be. Besides the games including the large central hoopla and the obvious collection of pretty girls, my favourite part of these fetes were the stalls of home made foods run by parents. Delicious home ‘ishtyle’ food was presented in paper plates that were inevitably covered with grass or sand. One year, I ...