Nostalgia of things missing from Delhi...

Nostalgia of old things, my bachpan, childhood.

Wondering about the old times spent in the streets of Delhi brings back flashes of memorised days. The thought process now brings out few things missing from the streets of Delhi which were seen long time back and now have become obsolete. Let’s visit that brain wave...

Bioscope-

50 paisa or may be less than that is the amount we as a child used to pay to have a glimpse of the moving pictures with the small windows of the Bioscope. For those who have not seen, a bioscope or bi-scope in local language, was a movable picture viewer kind of, strolled by a man, which had some fixed set of pictures moving inside it from left to right or vice versa. What I saw as Kid were mostly postures of Hero and Heroines from the 70s, 80s. That was a few minutes show normally and sometimes few beautiful monuments and landscapes trapped inside the peeped holes.

As a kid that was one of the most beautiful stuff to be seen as it was one of the few sources of having a glance of the Indian Cinema.

Harley Davidson Phat Phatis/Four seaters-

Nostalgia of Harley Davidson Phat Phatis running from Kodia Pull(bridge) near Old Delhi railway station to Shahdara. These three wheeled and four big seated shared service was scraped somewhere around 2002. The huge bikes were brought in India after the second world war and were auctioned. A big business opportunity was seen in the machine being converted into colourful shared rickshaws opened from all sides. The engine was started with a string rotated and pulled around a turbine. As a kid it was fun to be seated in the Phat Phatias or four seater as it was called due to its four big seats accommodating 6-8 people at a time. I remember we used to pay around Rs 2.5 per seat for a long ride of 7-8 kms and the machine roaring with heavy sound.