Swar-vihar; the pool of music

Before casettes, CDs, MP3s i-pods and youtube and a hundred other smart sources that bring music to you at your fingertips, on demand, we had in Pune, right here on FC Road, bang opposite Vaishali, the mother-lode of music. Swar-vihar. An Alladin's cave of treasures for the hindi film song lovers amongst us who didnt stay at home and had no access to music except a transistor radio owned by perhaps one or two people.
After an 80paisa masala dosa at Vaishali (followed by a 50p wada-sambar if you were feeling rich as well as greedy), we would amble across (yes, FC was something like the Shimla Mall Road - you could amble down and not be mowed down by some moron on a mobike), and for the princely sum of 25p a song, we would have the quiet owner enclose us in a booth in which 6 people would barely fit, and have him play us songs of our choosing.
For half an hour before this, we would argue and wrangle about what we were going to listen to, who would pay how much, who got to listen to what,etc. If it was someone's birthday, she got to listen to all her favourites that evening. Generously, the birthday girl would throw in songs that everyone liked too, so while most of us would groan at Mukesh doing Saranga teri yaad mein, one of us got to listen to the song and moon about some ex-beau called Sarang. (Mukesh fans, calm down, today I love the Saranga song; in those days it sounded like someone was baying nasally at the moon.) Or I got to whistle along with the last bars of Hemant Kumar's 'Tum, pukarlo; tumhara intazaar hai'.
Swar-vihar was a tiny unobtrusive little establishment (where perhaps there is a juice bar now?), but it was the nerve centre for the music lover, the love lorn and the nostalgically inclined. Stacked and packed from floor to ceiling with records, this tiny place would close for the night only after the owner had politely requested, and then ordered us out of there.
Occasionally we would be joined by Some Boys. This would change the atmosphere in the 6-people cubicle dramatically, since invariably one of the Boys would be interested in one of the Girls, and would insist on playing songs that sent across messages, subtle and not-so-subtle.
Once we crammed ourselves into that space, any other visitor to Swar-vihar would wag his head in despair and push off, knowing that we would have at least 16 songs lined up, and would not leave till FC hostel gate closing time.
When we were virtually thrown out of the place, we would float off back to the girls hostel, in a haze of music, awash in it, and already planning what we would listen to the next evening. We would walk up the lane leading towards the hostel, fragrant in September with the flower-fall of 8 stately cork-trees, that seemed to air-condition and perfume the whole area.
Today I have everything including the song videos at my fingertips. As I write this, I'm listening and watching from Heer-Ranjah, 'Meri duniya mey tum aayee kya kya apnay saath liye....tannn ki chandi, mann ka sona...sapno waali raat liye'. And I can from there move on to the next song that takes my fancy. And I dont have to stop listening at 9pm.
So I dont miss Swar-vihar itself, but that whole time and place, when every spending choice and decision - music or medu wada? - was such a delicious one.
gouri dange