Wadia Amphitheatre turns 100, takes its place of pride

Popularly known as Fergusson College Amphitheatre, the NM Wadia Amphitheatre in Fergusson College is hitting a century on Wednesday.

A platform used by Swantryaveer Sawarkar, Ravindranath Tagore, scientist CV Raman, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Prof Ram Shewalkar, presidents Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Rajendra Prasad, Acharya Atre and Pu La Deshpande to enlighten students, now will script a new history.

Vice-president of Deccan Education Society (DES), Vikas Kakatkar told DNA, ‘The amphitheatre was built in 1912 by DES after an initial amount of Rs25,000 was donated by the Wadia trust. The total construction cost of this three-storied building was Rs60,000 then and nearly 50% of the college strength would be accommodated in it during a public lecture.”

He added, ‘The building has been listed on the Pune Municipal Corporation’s heritage building list. There was not much of renovation done of this Gothic and Indian style structure. However, some 25 years ago we had changed the seating arrangement of the structure, that is, we changed the chairs.”

He said the amphitheatre would be renovated at a cost of Rs1.75 crore. White lime would be used instead of cement for plastering the walls. A new audio-visual system would be installed. The leaking roof would be fixed and a dais would be constructed.

“We have appointed heritage experts to carry out the work,” he said, adding, “The movie Gandhi by Richard Attenborough was shot here.”