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August 25, 2002
REVIEW: Love is not blind
THERE is a large food store in Moscow spread over two floors and several thousand metres. During the Soviet era, when the prices of essential food items were low, there wasn’t much of a choice. People queued for rice, flour and porridge, which were packed in bland and unattractive brown paper bags. Nobody begged or borrowed. But when Sukirat, the author of My years in Russia revisited Moscow in 1997, for the second time since the break-up of the USSR, he found that the same store had turned into a sparkling and alluring foodstore-cum-delicatessen. There are now rows and rows of choicest food and liquor from different parts of the world. It reminds you of supermarkets in the West, but there is one big difference — in the Moscow store there are very few buyers.
The Indian writer insists that there was no poor class in the Soviet era, now even the middle class has become poor. Beggars are a familiar sight, even those who were reasonably well off under the Communist system have been reduced to beggary. Crime is no longer uncommon. As the author says, its incidence may be less than in some American cities, but at least in the US you have clearly demarcated safe and unsafe areas. In Moscow there are no safe areas. Sukirat, the writer of the highly readable booklet — My years in Russia: a time to remember — says more than half of the news programmes of non-state owned TV channels were devoted to crime news.
Salaries have increased but they have not kept pace with the galloping inflation. The worst off are the pensioners. They can’t even meet their basic needs. “Their lifetime savings had shrunk to a worthless amount, thanks to the rampant inflation.” Imagine all this happening to the citizens of what was once a superpower in the world.
One of the most heart-rending stories narrated by Sukirat is about his visit to a foodstore in the company of his Russian godmother Toma. She wants to buy a fish to cook for him but he insists on paying for it because he realizes that it would consume one-fifth of her pension. For him it is no big sum — equivalent to merely hundred rupees. As he is making the payment he hears someone in the queue saying, “My pension is about seven days away. If possible please buy me something to eat.” Being an Indian he is not unfamiliar with beggars. But when he turns round he finds “an emaciated old man, with so much humiliation and shame in his eyes that my own cheeks start burning with embarrassment”. When Sukirat buys him half a kilo of meat, the old man thanks him profusely.
Sukirat’s views are balanced even though being the son of a hard-boiled Communist leader, he is fair in his assessment of Russia. As a university student in Moscow of the seventies, he brushed shoulders with both Soviet and international students. He realized, at least once at his own expense, how callous and inconsiderate people in power could be during the Communist period and how misplaced their priorities. “They were making space rockets and aeroplanes, yet good quality shoes had to be imported,” he observes.
Referring to the TV programmes in the Soviet era, Sukirat says “There were huge doses of daily eulogies to the prospering Soviet society, but no attempt to examine its shortcomings even in passing. On the other hand, only the negative aspects of the West were amplified like crime, unemployment and social inequality.” But one thing remained constant before and after the end of socialism — the warmth and the hospitality of the Russians.
The New Delhi based Sukirat, who works for a Punjabi newspaper, published from East Punjab, was talked into writing columns on his experiences in Russia by the daily’s literary editor, Balbir Parwana. The columns were turned into chapters when his writings appeared in a book form. On his uncle’s insistence, Sukirat Anand (he doesn’t mention his surname) did an English translation of the fast-selling slim volume. Much to his credit it doesn’t read like a translation. One wishes it could be translated into Urdu so that our people could also get an objective, yet engaging account of life in Russia.
Reviewer’s email: starmag@dawn.com
My years in Russia: a time to remember
By Sukirat
Brunel Academic Publishers Ltd., 196 Church Road, Northolt MIDDX UB5 5AE, UK
ISBN 0-75411-8681 151pp. Indian Rs160 UK 6
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