Music binds hearts and is in the veins of both Indians and Russians. Raj Kapoor was an iconic figure in Russia and his films, Awara and Shri 420, ran to full houses for years there
Away from geo-politics, energy security, strategic interests, defence and business deals, there is a new world out there that defines India-Russia relations. It’s a world where hearts meet and emotions blend. The mind is not the master here and material considerations do not determine the bonding. It’s a confluence — a sangam — that only close friends can understand and feel. Cold-hearted calculati
ons give way to innocent delights rooted in not just nostalgia but also in the present.
With confluence comes turbulence at times. Close friends bicker, even furiously disagree and at times fight. But they do not separate, even if they stop conversing for days and weeks. The inherent mechanisms of trust, of longing, and of belonging, swing into motion in times of crises to salvage the relationship. India and Russia are those kinds of friends. Separation is unimaginable, even impossible. There is far too much of emotional investment for either to walk away.
Of course, enemies of the relationship are always on the prowl. Consumed by jealousy they plot, plant stories, magnify differences and seek to divide and destroy. When gossip fails in its task, they resort to the ultimate — turn on their charms, promising fresh delights, new opportunities and a novel vitality. The seduction is brazen, often crass. But even that cannot dent ties founded on decades of faith. The India-Russia relationship is one such.
With changing circumstances, two friends may reach out to others and forge even dazzling arrangements. At the end of the day, however, they still need each other and find true solace in each other’s company. The warmth of a sparse home cannot be duplicated by the most expensive suite in a luxurious hotel. And when there is talk of the heart, what makes two hearts to tick in harmony, matters. Friendship doesn’t blossom in a vacuum and it does not flourish without common interests. If that interest is material, then it’s not friendship; it’s a relationship of utility. If it transcends the petty framework — as it has between India and Russia — the partnership acquires an aura that is more profoundly felt than obviously seen.
A friendship of the India-Russia sort, that has reached this zenith, is not dependent on symbolism or occasional bursts of loyalty to sustain. One is there for the asking always. A Russian leader once told Jawaharlal Nehru something to the following effect: “If you have any problem, we are there right across and within hearing distance. Call us and we’ll be there.” We called and the Russians were there. They called us and Indians were there too. It was a song.
And when music binds hearts and is in the veins of both Indians and Russians, can the lure of films as an adhesive be far behindIJ Raj Kapoor was (and remains long after his death) an iconic figure in Russia, and his films, Awara and Shri 420, were dubbed in Russian and ran to full houses for years. It is said that Boris Yeltsin (former President) and Yuri luzhkov (former Moscow Mayor) often hummed the songs from Awara. The 1950s was a period when the then Soviet Union was struggling from the hardships of the Second World War. Raj Kapoor was the quintessential underdog in the films who braved a cold-hearted world and yet managed a smile on his face and a song on his lips. The Russians loved the spirit, since it gave them the courage to face their own problems. That’s how the Indian and the Russian hearts bonded. It began with Raj Kapoor but did not end there. Shah Rukh Khan is the current heartthrob. Before him was Mithun Chakraborty whose disco numbers made every other Russian grind his pelvis. And there was of course the Angry Young Man and Dharmendra. Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor were part of the first Indian joint venture film called Ajooba. It should not be surprising that the Russians simply love Hindi films; they are emotional people to the core and, like the Indians, they laugh and cry along with the actors, simply believing that the emotions they see on the screen are their very own.
Indians have reciprocated this love through books. In the years of the independence struggle and for decades afterward, Russian (then Soviet Union) authors enjoyed a hero-like stature here. While the West kept churning out novels where the war hero was the one who downed Russian conspiracies and eliminated Russian enemies, authors from Russia wrote of suffering and marginalisation, but their characters retained wit an sarcasm in the face of odds. They were a rage in India. The list is long, and the few that can be named (and who wrote in the 19th century and later) offhand are leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Ivan Turgenev, Nikolay Gogol, Evgeni Pushkin… There is a story that Raj Kapoor once arrived at lyricist Shailendra’s place at midnight and, in a somewhat inebriated condition, told the modest poet effusively: “You are my Pushkin!” for Sab kuch seekha humney, na seekhi hoshiyari; such hai duniya walon, ke hum hain anadi’.
If an intruder into this friendship which rests on foundations of the Raj Kapoor-Pushkin kind, were to entertain hopes of disrupting the relationship, he would be living in a fool’s paradise.