‘‘Kalpana Bhel. It’s the one place in Pune most associated with my memories. I remember coming here ever since I was 10 years old,’’ says Agashe. ‘‘In fact, the person who ran the stall would pass below our house everyday with the bhel ingredients, and we would watch wistfully as he went by. We didn’t have a lot of money in those days, so it was not often that we got the four annas the bhel cost then. But when we did get it, it would invariably be spent at this corner stall.’’ Today money is not the constraint, time is. Nevertheless, Agashe makes it a point to visit the bhel stall at least once a month with his old friends to sample its lip-smacking fare. ‘‘The summer bhel is special, because that’s when they add pieces of raw mango to the mix,’’ he smiles as he expertly mixes the ingredients handed over to him by Dattatray Paigude, who has inherited the business from his father. ‘‘Very often, when I am with some old friends in the evening, we decide to come here on the spur of the moment,’’ says Agashe. One such friend and bhel faithful is painter Subhash Avachat who, like the actor, has been visiting the stall for years. And though the price of the bhel has gone up from char anna to Rs 7 over the past four decades, the taste, swears Agashe, remains unchanged. ‘‘For me, the taste is akin to, say, the dal grandma prepared. It’s always the same and something which is associated with so many childhood memories. It’s the connection between my past and my future.’’ Yet another favourite Agashe hang-out — down the same road — is S P College, where the doc did two years of his pre-medical studies. ‘‘In the college, it was the swimming pool where I spent all my evenings. For eight years — six as a schoolboy and then the two years I studied here before joining B J Medical College — I would be here every evening. In fact, for sometime I even taught children how to swim so that they would allow me to swim free of charge,’’ he reminisces sitting on the side of the 50-feet-long pool. ‘‘We had a very tough instructor who’d make us swim at least 500 metres in one go. And after that we’d be so ravenous, we’d rush to the canteen across for vada-pav. The canteen is still there.’’ After joining medicine, studies and dramatics took precedence for Agashe till, finally, he abandoned swimming altogether. ‘‘Actually, I have come here today after years,’’ he reveals. ‘‘I love Pune and typically Puneri places like these, which have room for the eccentric. That’s what makes life so colourful and interesting in the city and that’s what makes the city so close to my heart,’’ smiles the true blue Puneri. So much then, for the arclights blinding one to life’s little pleasures.
