The Allahabad of mid 1950s
Britishers came to India as traders but eventually became the rulers of India. They moved North West from Bengal and gradually captured power in whole of India.
what is now Uttar Pradesh was known as United provinces of Agra and Oudh and its capital at first was Allahabad.
Britishers then planned an entirely modern extension of Allahabad City. Allahabad University, grand administrative buildings, wide roads, lush green parks and modern markets were the result of a very good planning. The market for the Britishers in Allahabad was named civil lines market. Britishers also constructed beautiful spacious bungalows, libraries and theatres.
Till the1950s civil lines market used to be a very posh , very clean, single storied, uncrowded and open market place. There were two cinema hall. One of them was plaza and the other was called palace . Palace cinema hall showed english movies only. It was originally meant for the so called white gentry. Even after independence of India, palace cinema hall continued to show only English movies for quite sometime.
In late fifties several eating places were there in civil lines. There was a trade mark Indian Coffee House. There was the high status Guzdhars restaurant. There was also a low budget but good quality popular restaurant by the name of Lucky Sweet Mart . KOHLI PHOTO shop was the photography shop the main market area and some distance away by the road towards the Alfred park was Glamour photo studio .
Jukebox was a craze in early fifties and at the BN Rama's big department store there was a grand Juke Box. You had to drop a four Anna coin into a slot , select your favourite song by pressing one of the 20 buttons under front panel to select one of those top popular songs of the day. The selected songs were played one by one by the record changer.
MASTONS was an elite tailoring shop next to Kohli photo . At rupees thirtyfive for stitching a woolen coat they were known to have one of the highest rates in Northern India.
Rickshaw hiring charges from civil lines to University hostels (the Katra area) was a standard 25 paise.
BULAKI 's hair cutting salon was the most Hi Fi hair dresser and it was adjacent to Palace cinema . It was patronised by many affluent University students.
The clock tower above the senate hall of the university had a clock identical to the big Ben of London and its gongs were powerful and similar to the big Ben of London.
JAGATI was a very old restaurent of University Road. Opposite jagati a little towards Saraswati Lal hostel was Bhatt ji's bakery shop and restaurent. Facing it was Friend's Book Depot, the most popular of several book shops on the university road. There was also a hair cutting salon, a furniture hiring shop, a very good general merchent shop on this University road market. There was also a popular tailoring shop by the name of H.D.Pant tailors on the road towards Anand Bhavan.
There were no transister radios in India until late 1950s . Every hostel hlad a very large common hall (general social gathering area) and there used to be a huge old time radio set in this common hall of the hostel. Students used to gather there in big number to listen to cricket commentary and BINACA GEET MALA. Vizzy and Pearson sureta were the most well known cricket commentators of those days. And for binaca Geet mala we had the famous Amin Sayani, a man with a golden voice.
As I look back, it was an altogether different time as compared to today -
very laid back simple life .
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