Odeon Theater no not one in London but one near Garodia Nagar, Ghatkopar was one of the finest movie halls to watch movies in the 1975 to 1990 period, when it was built it had great interiors and sound system. My memories of watching movies here is mostly the old ones, Sholay, Qurbani, Karz, not many but mostly the Amitabh ones and Jeetendra, Dharmendra and Sanjeev Kumar flicks. Then came the early morning shows of english movies , and we would run for the Sunday 11 am shows , Jackie Chan movie The Protector was the first show that was screened and it was insatant hit, later on Ghostbusters and many more were show, but like any business this too do not last long.
Then as the years went by the movies shown here was not running much as the movies itself were pathetic stuff. Mostly the movies like Sholay or any other shown would run for weeks and months, and it would be declared silver jubliee hit, meaning 25 weeks, golden jubliee 50, not like movies now which has a run for 4 days and its declared a hit, in todays scenario a movie fate can be known in the first 2 days Friday , Saturday and if it is good and the cable Tv guy has not shown the camera print it will be running for few weeks and then shown a month later on one of the Satelite channels.
Anyway back to ODeon and its surrounding, the area around was really buzing then with lot of black marketeers who would gobble up the tickets and then sell it through the vada pav walla stall opposite the theatre or the paan walla or they would stand near Hotel Prakash.
Odeon shopping centre was one of the best to shop for womens and kids wear, the Khandoi Halwai store selling hot samosa, patra, jalebi oooh this was specially great during the Dussera day when a Kilo fo jalebi would be sold for Rs 3 which was 50% off, it still does but the rate has gone up, there used to be a huge queue from 6 am to grab the first lot of hot jalebi. The farshan (mixture of gram flour mixed with spices, dal, and many more stuff...lol) Phafda , and dhokla, and its never ending stuff.
Next to it was the Odeon wine shop, most of the local colony guys would buy liqour from here, not to been seen taking liqour they would go inside the shopping complex and wine shop guy would deliver the stuff in paper bags , this to avoid someone from the neighbourhood seeing one picking stuff as then the South Indians and the Gujurathi folks for them drinking was a big taboo.
The Dry cleaner, Brite Photo studio one of the only studios then, great owners - typical Sindhi , but the Old Plump guy was really good and would make you comfortable when you had to remove the pic, his not so young son now still runs the business, the Chakiwalla (Flour mill) now made into a Pharma Store which is also shut and made way for a boutique, the sugar cane juicewala - now a trendy juice corner instead selling cold drinks and fruit juice, the other end a Good General store the fat guy with mushtache, he still owns it, would be always kind and curteous when one would go there to buy stuff, his was the only store that would sell cakes, paani puri cones , and all that, offcourse who would forget Bhatia TV store, Mr Bhatia was a very kind person, all our radio, its liecence, the old balck and white crown tv, then the crown color tv all purchased from his store and so many of our neighbours and friends brought from him, though he now runs a communication store and is also a member of a political party.
Hotel Prakash oldest Udipi hotel in Ghatkopar, they had a great Idli sambhar and vada sambhar, but as time went by the hotel lost all its charm, though now being run by the youngest son Ganesh, he has recently done a nice trendy look with granite tiles and good waiters with clean uniform.
The Ganesh festival was always a big draw here during the 1980's, most of the road opposite the centre was empty , clear off all the illegal store which have cropped up in recent years, specially the 2 juice centre, and the other flower stores, the area is now filled with cars parked on both side stopping traffic with people having their grub of sandwich , or frankie, or vada pav, tea or picking up flower for some occaison or the other, the market road is full of vendors selling the vegetables and fruits one of the costliest in the entire ghatkopar east area, as the rich prefer to buy quick and zipp into thier car, they don't bargain. So the average middle class people have to either buy late in the evening or go to station market.
The area has a new mutiplex coming up its almost done - the PVR theatres this in place of the old Odeon theater which was demolished as the market for single theater and dirty wooden seats were not someone wanted to go, after all they got to see the movies in the comfort of their home on the VCR or the now mordern DVD / CD player or the Cable TV. People prefer to see the movie in the comfort of the luxury provided by these multiplex but all with a huge price attached to it.
The good old municipal swmimmig pool still there, though I have personally lost count how many years it remained shut, and also after it did reopen how many months it is shut for repairs and maintainance.
The good old charm of the area is gone, no longer one can take a a peaceful walk here as the coming of the ICICI Bank and the food stalls and the increasing number of vehicles have had such an affect that now you have signals at the Raymonds - Kailash Plaza corner, and one at the Ratna Store - UTI Bank.
So times have gone by fast and one dosen't know how long before one would need a flyover to reach ODEON oops PVR theater.
Ghakopar Swimming pool, Odeon Shopping Centre, Ghatkopar Shopping, Ghatkopar news
