Nostalgia and memory: Places of play, forever changed
By Aditya Deshbandhu Observations from a recent visit to Palika Bazar in Delhi once a popular haunt for Indian gamers. Growing up as a north Indian child in the nineties, Hyderabad was a challenge as I tried to make sense of who I was, where I was from and where I belonged while making decisions […]
By Aditya Deshbandhu
Observations from a recent visit to Palika Bazar in Delhi once a popular haunt for Indian gamers. Growing up as a north Indian child in the nineties, Hyderabad was a challenge as I tried to make sense of who I was, where I was from and where I belonged while making decisions on language, cuisine, clothing, music and movies. As I tried to assimilate my liking for Leo, Brad, Shahrukh and Hrithik while at the same time making room for Mahesh and Prabhas.
It was on one of those bi-annual trips to my father’s city of Delhi that I spent nearly 18 hours hunched on a handheld “brick games” device armed with a string of AA batteries. It was in Delhi that I first encountered the Nintendo Gameboy, a heavily built device that could let me play games like Mario and Pocket monsters. The love affair with Delhi and Nintendo had begun.
A few years later, I owned a Gameboy Advance (GBA) and the desire to play the latest games was something that drove me. However, there was a problem Nintendo’s cartridges were rare to find and the company officially neither sold its consoles nor its games in India but the GBA needed new cartridges to unlock its potential and my imagination needed as many games as it could find.
In my desire to find games for my Nintendo, I came across Palika Bazar, a bustling market for technology and gadgets just off Connaught Place in Delhi. Suddenly, Connaught Place became an essential place to visit the site every time I was in Delhi as I searched for games and followed my purchases with ice cream from Nirula’s or a Happy Meal from McDonald’s.
My visits to the Palika Bazar were different every time I went as the market changed and found ways to remain relevant as India’s tryst with digitality gained momentum. In my early visits, I remember how the cartridges for Nintendo were priced, most were pirated clones and a game’s cartridge was priced between Rs 150 to 200. You had to pay an extra 50 if you wanted the plastic casing/cover that went around the internal chip on which the game was loaded.
By 2009, I was in college and the market had changed significantly. The rush and popularity had grown multi-fold and the place was no longer just dark and musty but its walls were now splattered with gutkha and betel juice. I felt it lost its hold over me and I was introduced to new havens like Nehru place. Hyderabad’s very own CTC, Ambrit, and Jagdish market now offered similar wares for a budding gamer and a trip to Delhi isn’t necessary.
Last week, I went to CP and I felt the memories awash, the Nirula’s and McDonald’s were replaced by lunch at United India Coffee and waffles at Wenger’s but Palika remained. As I ventured in, the central AC hit me, this wasn’t the bazar I remembered, people were scarce and the technology stalls had shrunk. The air was cold and the business colder, there were knockoff jerseys and air pod lookalikes as the gaming stalls waited for customers that weren’t coming. As the games lay there gathering dust, the success of India’s e-commerce was never more evident.
With mobile and F2p gaming, how India’s games have changed significantly in the last decade. Places like Palika and Ambrit I fear, may be consigned to just memories and nostalgia.
