As the year 2011 bid farewell to people in the Doon valley, a well-known landmark, though sometimes controversial, vanished before our eyes. Within days!
Yes, I am talking about the stretch of Chakrata Road from Clock Tower up to Prabhat Cinema. Undoubtedly it was the most crowded spot in the city of
Dehradun. For years, there was talk of demolishing the shops and widening this bottleneck but somehow, things went on just as they were.
But action was finally taken and within a few weeks, Dehradun’s “suicide alley” was no more. Indeed, this was the name which the old Doonites had given to this part of Chakrata Road! “So you are late IJ” one would ask the other. “Yes, as you know, I had to come through the suicide alley”, the other would reply with a smile. Then, no more questions were asked.
Discussions, debates and exchange of views about Chakrata Road were always carrying on somewhere or the other in town, it was always a focus of attention. No one could ignore it. It had a lot of shops of photographers and chemists. And then they were the shops of Ayurvedic medicines. little colourful shops selling Garhwali and Hindi CDs and VCDs were also popular and so were the shops selling plastic goods like buckets and stools. Now that the road has been considerably widened, some of the old shops have come back while some were moved to the new MDDA complex.
The traffic has become smoother and the road is very wide. However, the typical old look of the town which made it unique and distinguishable from other cities has changed. The familiar sights are being taken away and an impersonal look is emerging which will soon make Doon look just like any other metro city, with wide roads and shopping malls.
When Kwality, The Vegetarian (a popular restaurant), Goyal Studio, Napoli Restaurant and many other landmarks vanished from Rajpur Road, people felt quite bad. Similarly is being missed the colourful crowded bazaar of Chakrata Road. Dispensary Road, which is called Book Road by many due to its many book shops, has also been changed drastically and now wears a scattered look .
When driving schools wanted to finally see whether their students had learnt how to drive, they would take them to drive through Suicide Alley. And if they could do so, they would be declared fit to drive anywhere in the world! This happened with me too.
I well remember going with my parents as a child to Prabhat, Natraj and Capri cinemas (Yes, Capri was then a cinema hall and not a trade centre!) for the night shows. When we would drive back home around midnight, the road would have only a few fellow film watchers. It was almost deserted. This was the patch where my parents would discuss the film we had just seen. It would happen each time. My brother then named these discussions “the Chakrata Road discussions”. All these memories will always stay with us, no matter how many shops are demolished and how many cinema halls bite the dust.
And here I would like to mention the old Digvijai Cinema hall at Clock Tower which has also seen many changes recently. At one time, the best of films ran at Digvijai. But for the past several years, it had become associated with C-Grade, sleazy films. However, this cinema hall has always been an important feature in the town’s landscape,facing the Ghantaghar.
When the demolition drive at Chakrata Road was on, one could see many old timers taking photographs of the old shops to keep them for memory’s sake. There were some who climbed on top of the Clock Tower to get a better view.
I was not able to do that as I did not have the heart to see everything breaking down in front of my eyes. Our old suicide alley gone!
What I have written may sound strange to many but I am sure that there would be people who understand what I am trying to say. With all the old landmarks vanishing like this and more and more shopping malls and complexes coming up, Dehra is becoming quite unrecognizable. Its cosy corners are vanishing. And somehow, it gives me a feeling of being lost, a feeling of sadness and regret. Convenience can never be more important than memories.