The Russia Diary

Fair Vote For Russia - Protests in DC

2011-12-10T15:40:00.000-08:00

This afternoon, I was at the DC protests against electoral fraud in the 4th Dec Duma elections. Around 100 people came so the turnout wasn't great. BUT 100,000+ protested in Moscow and that's a huge victory for Russia!

Back to DC, here is what you missed outside the Russian embassy:
1. I was one of the first people to get there. The police told us to go to the other side of the road. Not sure if these were DC police orders or the embassy had asked the police to tell us to stay away from the building
2. Nice peaceful protests. It was a slow start but then the crowd built up. Lots of interesting signs and posters. Some volunteers were distributing white carnations and tulips, as well as white ribbons - symbols of the protests
3. The first news channel to get there was...(drumrolls please)...Georgia's Rustavi 2! I'm sure Saakashvili is very happy with the developments in Russia! Kremlin-backed RT joined later and the Russians didn't seem too happy about that; some even called them, "shpioni" (spies).
4. A couple of guitar-'imeyushie' even played a few songs that I didn't recognize. I thought they'd play Viktor Tsoi's 'Peremen' - which I hear has become something of an anthem for these protests in Russia - but I guess it hasn't caught on everywhere else yet.
5. We had a signboard asking people driving by in cars to honk in support of a fair election in Russia. I was quite happy to see that many did!

Memo to self for any future participation in peaceful protests:
1. If the temperature is anywhere near 0 degrees, carry a pair of gloves
2. This is yet another reason why you should learn how to play a musical instrument
3. Even if you don't have all the materials to make the perfect signboard, scribble something on an A4 sheet in bright red pen. It's more fun that way!

Ok now I better get back to writing my paper, 'Predicting a Revolution in Russia.' I picked the topic in November but never in my wildest dreams imagined anything was possible or that things would become so interesting! Bravo Rossiyanini - you make me so proud!

20 years since the collapse of the USSR!

2011-12-07T18:39:00.000-08:00

A historic day today - for two reasons: 1. it is the 20th anniversary of the Soviet collapse; 2. this is the only time I will agree with Vladimir Putin and say that it indeed was the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century."

So here I remember the great state with some nostalgia and some fear, with a prayer for those who never saw freedom in their lifetimes, and hope for those who are currently fighting for their rights in Moscow and other cities across Russia against the electoral fraud committed by Putin's United Russia in the 2011 Duma elections.

Going back to humming this old Soviet tune: Moi adres ne dom i ne ulitsa, moi adres Sovetskii Soyuz (my address isn't a house or a street, my address is the Soviet Union.

Praying for Steve Jobs's legacy to continue...

2011-10-06T17:05:00.001-07:00

If Steve Jobs hadn't died yesterday, American news media would have been talking about the 10th anniversary of the US-led Afghan War. I hope someday peace will return to the country and its kids will have a normal childhood playing Angry Birds on an iPad. iAmen!

Bilateral Life

2011-06-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

Just last week, started a new blog with Russia & India Report - part of the Russia Beyond the Headlines project.

Called Bilateral Life, the blog perfectly describes my story (so far) i.e. born to one nation and forever longing to be in another!

Here's the intro. Hope you guys find the blog interesting. Comments and feedback always welcome!

With an Indian passport and self-proclaimed Russian heritage, Aanchal Anand took a year out to fulfill her childhood dream of living in Russia and learning the language. Whether it’s walking on the frozen canals of Petersburg, visiting Lenin’s mausoleum in Moscow, eating pirozhki with locals along the Trans-Siberian railroad, or rubbing shoulders with Mikhail Gorbachev – she has been there and done it all. With this blog, she shares her adventures, reveals the best travel-tips, and brings to you the socio-cultural and political aspects of life in Russia, often with an Indian twist! Aanchal has a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics. This year, she begins her Masters at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC to major in Russian and Eurasian studies. You can follow her on Twitter @aanch31, send story suggestions to bilateralDOTlifeATgmailDOTcom and tell us what you think by leaving comments on blogposts.

A Writer's Guide to PR

2011-06-17T20:03:00.000-07:00

I've recently started taking myself more seriously as a writer. So I'm reading more, scrutinisng more and doing much better against the dreaded writer's block. I've also joined a couple of writers' and freelancers' groups on LinkedIn - an incredibly useful source for at least 3 reasons:

- Being a writer can get lonely but when you find other lonely people like yourself, guess what happens? You stop feeling lonely
- It's an excellent way to be in the right company. I find that incredibly powerful and hope that some of their authorly awesomeness would rub off on me
- It's the one place I've found so far with oodles of excellent free advice for writers! I'm now going to share one that author Leslie Stern (whom I recently friended on Facebook) told me:

First PR rule for writers: market yourself everywhere.

It's so simple that it almost didn't inspire me. BUT it did kick me in the right place and made me wonder why I had never thought of it myself. To see that advice through, I've decided to post links to my previously published online articles on this blog. After all, like charity, PR begins at home! :)

Gorbachev's 80th birthday event

2011-03-26T02:28:00.000-07:00

As I already covered in an earlier post, I got the chance to meet Mikhail Gorbachev on 21st March 2011, when he celebrated his 80th birthday with journalists at Moscow's Dom Zhurnalistov.

I didn't manage to take photos with him - because I was so much in awe that I forgot that I was holding a camera! But a journalist there did take some and she promised she would send them. When I thanked her I added a polite "whenever it is convenient" - words I have since come to regret.

So I'm still waiting for her to reply - and hopefully she will indeed send them*. But meanwhile, I found this photograph of Gorbachev holding the flowers and birthday card I gave him:

Here is the rest of the photo-essay put together by her for the newspaper, Novaya Gazeta.

*PS - I just received my photographs. Excellent quality because the journalist's was a professional camera after all :)

How I Met Your Gorby

2011-03-22T16:20:00.000-07:00

“10:37 AM,” my watch panicked. I had to get to Dom Zhurnalistov (Journalists’ House) on Nikitsky Bulvar by 11:00 AM for a round table conference, where former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was to celebrate his 80th birthday. And there I was - among Bolshaya Nikitskaya, Malaya Nikitskaya and Nikitskie Vorota - completely lost. When it comes to directions, I’m not the most gifted person so I don’t harbor any illusions of DIY miracles. But I had already asked a few people and they had sent me all over the place.

The sight of 10:42 AM restored my faith in external help. Luckily, the guy in the next restaurant knew where I had to go…and I ran like the wind, mentally patting myself on the back for keeping my heels in my bag and wearing shoes instead. (I’m quite used to this last minute running and try to make it as painless as possible!)

10:53 AM – I was there! Phew! I walked upstairs to the hall where the conference was to take place and met Lilia Shevtsova at the entrance.

“Are you ok?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, realizing that I probably still looked a little ruffled.

“Are these flowers for him?” Lilia asked looking at the bouquet of orange-yellow chrysanthemums I was carrying. I nodded.

As I entered the hall, I scanned the table to see where Mikhail Gorbachev would probably sit and parked myself on a seat with the best 'view.' As I caught my breath, I finally had a chance to put everything together. Everything I was carrying had a little story behind it…

…In anticipation of this meeting Marzia, my fellow intern at the Carnegie Moscow Center suggested that we should buy “Gorby’s” books so he can sign them. What a brilliant idea! Except the night before the event, I realized that it wasn’t so easy. Moskva on Tverskaya that has the biggest collection had nothing to offer – all sold-out because of Gorbachev’s birthday on 2nd March. Sadly, Moscow’s largest bookstore Bilblio Globus was already closed for the day so I just bought a birthday card at Moskva and headed to Respublika when my flatmate Ira told me that it’s open 24x7. As luck would have it, no Gorby books there either.

“Perhaps you would like to buy Bazaar magazine. There’s a full interview of Gorbachev in there,” the shop-assistant suggested. Beggars can’t be choosers so I played along…till I saw the cover. Call me old-fashioned but I wasn’t going to have Gorbachev sign a magazine with a half-naked woman on its cover!

Biblio Globus – located next to FSB (former KGB) headquarters - was my last hope. It was my first time at Lubyanka metro station and as I went up the escalator, I remembered that Alexander Solzhenitsyn and millions of other Soviet people had gone up the same escalator to be questioned and tortured by the KGB and to be subsequently thrown into Soviet labor camps - this was the system Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev reformed!

Fingers and toes crossed, I asked the shop-assistant if they had a book by Gorbachev.

“Nyet.”

“Anything about Gorbachev then?”

He handed me a book on Gorbachev and Yeltsin. This was the more decently-dressed version of the Bazaar blasphemy. Imagine asking Winston Churchill to sign a book titled “Churchill-Hitler” or Shah Rukh Khan to sign “Shah Rukh-Salman.”

“Anything else?”

“One more but that’s the only other one,” he said handing me a Wolters Kluwer publication, Vyzovy v zhizni i deyatel’nosti M.S. Gorbacheva (Challenges in the life and work of M.S. Gorbachev). I quickly examined the table of contents: a collection of essays – fabulous! And since it was the translation of a German book, I was reassured that it had positive things to say about him. Gorby, sometimes spitefully, is referred to as “the best German” by Russians who blame him for the collapse of the Soviet Union…

…Having bought the book, I had one more thing to do – buy flowers. I must confess that I still haven’t gotten used to this Russian custom because never do I feel more robbed of my femininity than when I have to give flowers to a man. Ideally, it should always be the other way round - but when in Russia, do as the Russians.

“What about these pink and red tulips?” the flower-shop owner suggested.

“You know…I have to give these to a man…so maybe something else?”

“So what?” she sounded enraged. “Tulips are beautiful flowers. Why won’t you give them to a man???”

“How about something that isn’t pink or red?” I tried to calm her down.

Well, that’s how I ended up with the bright orange-yellow chrysanthemums representing “the Sun and good health” as the lady said…

…And now me. So how did I end up getting invited to a meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev? Well, if I have to justice to this story, I would have to go back to the time when I was five and fell in love with Russia but to keep your (and my) sanity, I will stick to more recent dates.

A few days into the Carnegie internship, I got my second translation assignment. Lilia Shevtsova – the Al Pacino/Gérard Depardieu/Amitabh Bachchan of the think tank world - had written, “How the West Has Become the Kremlin’s Hostage.” She was so happy with my translation that she asked my boss to thank me. That’s when my boss mentioned that I would love to work with Lilia and she took me under her wing. Late February, while discussing a research paper that I’m writing under her guidance, we landed on Gorbachev’s topic. Lilia mentioned that he's a very good friend of hers and that she was attending his 'birthday party' that weekend.

So you can imagine how my mind works - I started debating if should I ask her whether I could come along. The Good Aanch counseled, “Don't be silly! You don't even know her and it's too big a "favor" to ask for – especially because you were just trashing Gorbachev’s economic policies during perestroika and now suddenly you want to meet him!” The Bad Aanch said, “You f***ing nitwit. This is the closest you will ever get to a chance of seeing Gorby, the great. Ask her NOW!”

Now in case you didn't already know, I usually end up listening to The Bad Aanch because she's my only insurance against the four words I hate the most - "What if I had...?"

So I asked and Lilia politely explained that I can't go because it is a small event for family and friends only. "But..." - and this is the only time in history when the word 'but' was followed by hope instead of disappointment! - "…there is a closed event on 21st March when he celebrates his birthday with journalists. I'll put you on the list…”

…So there I was on 21st March 2011. 11:07 AM – things were about to start. I couldn’t wait! This man changed the world. He halted the Soviet nuclear arms race, allowed democratization of Eastern Europe and of his own country, and ended the Cold War. And while Ronald Reagan had merely taunted the Soviet leadership, Mr. Gorbachev did indeed tear down that Wall. He is not just a leader, he’s a Statesman – in the same league as Mahatma Gandhi. And for those who hate him for the disintegration of the USSR, let me remind you that it wasn’t Gorbachev but Yeltsin, Shushkevich and Kravchuk (Presidents of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarussian SSRs), who - knowing fully well that the overwhelming majority of the Soviet people had voted in favor of preserving the USSR with reforms – signed the Belavezha Accords to dissolve the Union.

As he entered the room, I couldn’t believe I was right there! I wondered if he would run right at the end of the conference and perhaps I wouldn’t get the chance to give him the flowers and the card. Perhaps his body guards won’t let me get the books signed – both mine and my flatmate Nastya’s – ‘Translating History’ by Igor Korchilov, Gorbachev’s translator. And then even if I managed it all in a rush, perhaps, the flowers and card would get lost in a big heap of other things and wouldn’t matter.

The conference began and the speakers around the table went on to say great things about Gorbachev. One man said that he feels lucky to have experienced more freedom than even his son who was born in the late 1980s and has grown up in Russia. Some even joked saying Gorbachev had destroyed many a Sovietologist’s career. One woman started speaking and Gorby interrupted asking who she represents. “Thanks to you, I can say that I represent myself,” came the prompt reply.

I was absolutely amazed with Gorbachev, who even at 80, will instantly charm you with his wit and humor. His voice is deeper than I had imagined and his manner thoughtful. But more than all that, he’s incredibly modest. When it was his turn to speak, he described himself as a small actor, who could not have done what he did without various factors like West Germany’s economic success and Soviet Union’s stagnation.

While the others were speaking, Lilia had come up to me saying that when Gorbachev finishes speaking she will invite me over to present him the flowers. WOW! So I was going to be able to do at least some of what I had wanted to. I played the scene in my head - I would walk up to him, give him the flowers and the card, shake his hand and wish him ‘S dnyom rozhdeniya.’ It was going to be that simple...

But it wasn’t! When Gorbachev finished, everyone applauded and Lilia stood up saying that she would “like to invite Aanchal Anand, who has come from India and would like present a bouquet to Mikhail Sergeevich. “

I walked up to Mr. Gorbachev and extended my hand – but perhaps not enough. I looked into his eyes – long enough for it to have been mistaken for a stare – and his deep eyes ‘stared’ back.

“Ti govorish po russki?” He asked if I spoke Russian and that’s when I realized that it had been more than a few seconds since I was standing there – not having said a word. I was in complete awe. I mean what do you say to such a great person?

But his question broke my frozen state. I extended my hand enough so he could take the flowers. “Zhelayu Vam s dnyom rozhdeniya. Vsevo samovo samovo xoroshevo!” He took the flowers and the card and placed them on the table and then turned back to me, with his arms wide open to hug me.

“You’re hugging Mikhail Gorbachev! ****!” my brain – or whatever part of me was still capable of thinking – said to me.

“I love India!” he smiled.

“Me too…” I uttered, immediately realizing what a dumb response that was, “…and I love Russia as well,” I tried to ‘save the situation.’ (I clearly need more practice of speaking with Nobel Laureates and former Heads of State!) But he found it all very amusing and I walked back for the closing comments of the conference.

I was back in less than a minute with my books because there were no body guards there to spoil the show. He had been so warm that I was confident he would sign them. But I was absolutely not expecting him to sign them with personal messages for Nastya and I, while casually chatting with me. He even invited me into photos other attendees were taking with him. Buying flowers and being Indian has never paid off this much! And I never thought a simple translation could lead to so much!

When he was gathering his things, I saw that my card was tucked between the pages of his diary. I felt honored that he was going to read it. As he walked out of the door, he patted me affectionately on my right shoulder.

What a day it had been! As I mentioned to my flatmates Nastya and Ira, I couldn’t believe that someone so great can be so modest. In case you think it’s because he’s old and might as well be nice, think again - Robert Mugabe is 87, Fidel Castro is 84, and Idi Amin and Pol Pot died at 78 and 73 respectively. Being nice is a choice and Mikhail Gorbachev is great not only because of the things he has done but also because he chooses to be nice – and that’s why he commands so much respect.

And here is my two cents for those who want to be great leaders – keep your ego in check. There’s a very thin line between confidence and arrogance and the former mutates easily. Coming from the corporate world, I know that every second assistant director thinks of himself (or herself) as God’s gift to mankind. And here I met God’s gift to mankind, and he thinks of himself as just any other ordinary man!

Guess who's back?

2011-01-28T13:15:00.000-08:00

Some adventures are just impatient and begin before their time. I was still 48 hours away from landing in Moscow when the owner of the place I had booked called to say that it had been flooded out and was “out of use.”
“That’s ok. I can get another place for a week and move in then,” I tried to sound very calm.
“You don’t understand. It has been completely flooded out. It’s dangerous to even use electricity and repairs can take up to 6 months”

****! And just like that, began what I like to call “Russia–Volume III.” Incidentally, Russia-Volume III is also Moscow-Volume I. The last two times I’ve been here, I’ve lived in Petersburg (Piter). This was going to be my first time living in Moscow. If such a thing happened in Piter, I have a gazillion friends to bail me out. In Moscow, I knew as many people as Jeffery Archer had in the title of Kane and Abel.

Truth be told, Aeroflot is not the best airline in the world. I was so drained after the red-eye that my brain couldn’t even figure out if it was because of the uncomfortable seats, the terrible food or the flight announcement at odd hours. (Oh well, at least it didn’t crash!) My initial plan was to roam around in the city-center till noon and then check in to the last-minute expensive hostel I had booked to temporarily save the day. But I made one of the better decisions of my life by heading straight to the hostel and paying for the previous night just so I could go to bed.

When I woke up at 2:30PM, I was surprised to see that it wasn’t dark yet. That’s the norm in Piter at this time of the year and I was glad to discover that Moscow is ‘powered’ till just after 5PM. Luckily, Moscow is also not as cold. While Piter shivers at around minus 20, Moscow is relatively cosy at around minus 10. People here say that once the temperature dips below minus 5, you can’t really tell how cold it is. But if like me, you had gone from plus 13 in Delhi to minus 11 in Moscow, you’d damn well be able to tell how cold it is. I guess that’s why clicking photos at the Red Square felt like such an ordeal. I was wrapped inside 3 thick sweaters, an overcoat, jeans thrown over 2 pairs of tights, along with the usual hat, scarf and mittens and yet, somehow it was still not warm enough. After taking less than a dozen photos of the Kremlin, St Basil’s Cathedral, Lenin’s Mausoleum, and the beautifully lit GUM(1), the index finger of my right hand, which was all I had chosen to expose to the Russian winter, had already slipped into a coma. I had to practically do a Vidya Balan and suck it to bring it back to life!

I’m Garfield when it comes to Mondays but 17th January 2011 was a special Monday. It was my first day as an intern at the Carnegie Moscow Center(2) and also my official baptism into international relations. Even though I devoured Foreign Policy more lustfully than The Wall Street Journal, I had been a corporate kitten so far. This internship was going to be my transition - an attempt at converting my hobby into a career.

I walked in excitedly and was at my work-station in 30 minutes. And what a work-station! I sit in the library, which is the dome of the Galeriya Aktyor building on Tverskaya - Moscow’s most famous street – that overlooks Tverskaya (obviously!) on both sides, Pushkin Square with his statue, and you can see 3 of the 7 Stalinist skyscrapers(3) including the imposing Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But the view I fell in love with was the Pepsi billboard right across the street that said, “Vsyo tolko nachinaetsya!” (It’s only just beginning). How true!

First days usually involve quietly slipping into a new environment but mine involved a 4PM office party with lots of champagne and wine! It was our IT Manager, Volodya’s 50th birthday and we all gathered to celebrate in style. (They even made me toast in Hindi!) The party was a great way to meet all the research experts and staff at Carnegie, who were all very curious and welcoming as I am their first-ever Indian intern. That’s also how I met Alexander Starikov. He came up and told me that he had visited Delhi back in 1959. Wow! Nostalgia lit up his eyes as he gently sipped his wine. “I stayed at Krishna Road.”
“Krishna Road?” I struggled to remember.
“It is where all the embassies are.”
Really? Then this is somewhere in present-day Chanakyapuri – where I live!

Alexander went on to explain his role as the Deputy Director of Carnegie’s journal, Pro et Contra, and also shared that the photos hanging around the office and the conference hall were his works! At first glance, I wondered what photo-editing function had been used to get the wind and ripple effects but Alexander revealed that he usually sits by ponds, waits for a leaf to fall and snatches the perfect moment. None of his works(4) had been edited. He had captured life either through the rainy glasses of moving trolleybuses or through the dusty windows of the city’s high-rises. I could hardly believe that such exquisite art hadn’t been edited! Adobe Photoshop – eat your heart out.

As I walked back home that evening, the champagne wore off and the Moscow winter began to ferociously gnaw at my skin. You know it’s too cold when:
-You accidentally leave Backstreet Boys on repeat play on your iPod but it’s too cold to take it out of your pocket and change the song
-You spend an extra couple of seconds behind a car exhaust while crossing the road just so it can warm you up
-You want to give a fitting reply to the construction worker who just made a rather inappropriate gesture at you but your middle finger is too scared to leave the warm confines of your mittens

So ladies and gentlemen, stay tuned because there’s a lot more to come. After all, vsyo tolko nachinaetsya!

Notes:
1. Gosudarstvenii Universalnii Magasin = State Universal Shop–the abyss of shopping during Soviet times now adorned by the Louis Vuttons, D&Gs and Chanels of the world
2. About Carnegie: http://carnegie.ru/about/?lang=en
3. Moscow’s Seven Sisters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(Moscow)
4. Some pics of Alexander Starikov’s photos are here: http://tinyurl.com/5vyevl9

Varun Gandhi must be on dope!

2009-05-10T03:10:00.000-07:00

http://election.rediff.com/report/2009/may/09/loksabhapoll-varun-gandhi-for-sterilisation-compulsary-military-service.htm

1. Varun Gandhi wants to re-introduce sterilisation program and continue his father's legacy (who, by the way, sterilised people on the sly without their knowledge!). I love how in India, population control has to be so fatal. What about condoms and pills? ("Oh but that is immoral because it will encourage sex!" Indeed and we're the second largest population on this planet through vegetative propogation, right?)
I'd like to see VG to be the first person who is sterilised. Doosron ko bolna bahut hi aasan hota hai...

2. Varun Gandhi wants to make military service compulsory to "unite" India. Usse accha hoga if he stopped making hate speeches against Muslims. I disagree with compulsory military service. I think it should be a choice otherwise people will start resenting it. Plus it will be a huge hole in the Govt's budget! Also, if caste and religious divides exist in society, expect to see them in full flare during military service where certain groups will be bullied and harassed. And again - why doesn't he do some military service first?

3. Varun Gandhi "vowed to protect local people from "anti-social" elements after three local girls were reportedly gang-raped." I feel alienated that I'm not one of the "local people" VG cares about. And I'm sorry but this is not the first time women have been raped in India. If VG reads the newspaper, he might have noticed that this is an everyday reality. How nice to want to root out "anti-social" elements (whatever that means!) before elections.

Aaa-cchhooo!

2009-04-29T08:13:00.000-07:00

I don't like this one bit - Aaa-cchhooo! I hate missing Uni so close to exams (though some might argue that one is more productive that way) so I could sneeze all day into aromatic tissues that I picked up (Aaa-cchhooo!) from a well-timed sale at Paterson. What's the point of having them smell like (Aaa-cchhooo!) peach or apple or vanilla? It's not like I can sme-(Aaa-cchhooo!)-ll anything right now anyway, and it's not very nice to be reminded of temporary disabilities!

In the (Aaa-cchhooo!) midst of the deadly swine flu epidemic, I guess a regular flu is bittersweet at worst but this is the 3-(Aaa-cchhooo!)-rd time in 4 months that (Aaa-cchhooo!) my organism has been humbled by this lyctic bas-(Aaa-cchhooo!)-tard of a Rhinovirus! I used to have an immune system to die for! I almost never (Aaa-cchhooo!) fell sick - maximum a fever a year with a few throat-aches, usually (Aaa-cchhooo!) associated with the over-consumption of Coca-Cola or Baskin-Robbins' cookie dough (Aaa-cchhooo!) ice-cream. (They don't kid when they say that stuff isn't good for health!) But St. Pete's PMSing (Aaa-cchhooo!) weather conditions, false promises of a warm Spring day and living (Aaa-cchhooo!) next to the Gulf of Finland where the average wind-speed is 4m/sec (that's high, right?) have shattered this iron-curtain of an Indian immune system I used to be so proud of.

The only good thing is that I am (Aaa-cchhooo!) again accepting get-well-soon cards, flowers, chocolates, return-(Aaa-cchhooo!)-tickets to warm places etc. and you know where to find me ;)

Aaa-cchhooo!

Remembering London

2009-04-17T23:22:00.000-07:00

As fanatical as I may be about Russia; as homesick as I may be for India; I will always say that there's no place like London! My only problem with the capital of the Old Empire was it's weather but clearly, that won't be an issue anymore. There is always something worse in life! Today, for instance, St. Pete was at -2 with 'heavy' snow. (Well, it definitely felt heavy for Spring!)

I went to London for the first time way back in 1997. This was the first time my 11 year old feet stepped on foreign soil and I was smitten by the idea of London. My Dad was studying at the LSE back then; and Mom, Arpita (my sis) and I had gone to spend a few months with him.

Arpita and I both enrolled into schools. Those were some of the best days of my life. I loved how school began at 9:30 and not at 8:00 like in India. Every morning, I walked her to school and read her a children's book in her school's library. I still remember, 'A Mother for Choco'(1) about a orphan chick who is looking for his mother and finally gets adopted by Mrs. Bear - that was our favourite book and I read it to her at least a dozen times.

I would then head to my own school - Sheringham Junior, where the day would start off with a casual chat with my class-teacher, Mr Robinson, a remarkable person. I loved how he made an effort to get to know everyone and how encouraging he was, which was such a contrast to how most teachers behaved in India. (Needless to say, those who didn't behave like this became very dear!)

Classes were always fun. In India, we read books, underlined all the points depending on which questions were posed at the end of the chapter and we went home, where we neatly wrote these answers out. London was so much more dynamic - we didn't just read the books but we watched videos and went to museums, we debated these questions and we went home, where we made colourful projects about what we had learnt - and this "what we had learnt" could have been anything we wanted. Moreover, as a geeky Indian, I loved being able to answer questions like 11 times 13 in 2 seconds, while the other students would still be staring at their notebooks. I bet they hated me for this! And they also made fun of me because they could never understand why I would always stand up to answer the questions. But nevertheless, they played with me and they were my friends. Those differences were never taken personally even if they were annoying. My classmates in India were never so kind...

Fast-forward to 27th September 2004: I landed at London Heathrow and this time because I was going to the LSE...

First time away from home is both exciting and scary to say the least. There were things that weren't so much fun - this was the first time I had to do my laundry - but there were things that made me feel like an adult instantly. This was the first time I could do things on my own terms. I could oversleep without Mom and Dad giving me a hard time for the rest of the week. I could go out whenever I wanted with whoever I wanted (Mom and Dad are still a bit strict though with time they too have grown up!) The London Underground completely eliminated by dependence on the need to be picked up and dropped off. Plus unlike New Delhi, London is very safe for women and I didn't ever have to worry about getting r*ped and murdered(2). And most importantly, this was the first time I had a debit card with my name on it. Being in control of my own £inances - even if that money came from a ridiculous 12.5% student loan that had to be paid back - was a big step for me! So in London, having dropped my chains, I was taking cautious steps and big leaps all at once...

The first cut is the deepest. And London is so dear because it is so many first cuts - first time abroad, first university, first love, first job, first apartment...

That’s probably why nostalgia is so unbearably powerful when it’s for London. The craving is so real that I can...

...see the traffic at the High Holborn crossing where I waited for 38 to go back to my hostel on Rosebery Avenue;
...smell the midnight hot-dogs and pizzas at Leicester Square and Tottenham Court Road;
...hear “The next stop is Canary Wharf” on the Jubilee Line;
...taste pineapple coolers at Ping Pong, the peri-peri sauce at Nandos, the strawberry cheesecake ice-cream at Haagen-Dazs;
...and feel the wind in my hair while crossing the Thames to get to the Lehman building on Bank Street

Coming to Russia made me realise how ‘Indian’ London really is. London has a huge Indian community so no one stared at me when I was out in the street. There are a gazillion Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi restaurants for the Brits love “curry” as much as we do. Diwali and Holi are celebrated with the same fervour as in India though not on the same scale. And I used to get invitations to Bollywood parties all the time. Therefore, Russia sometimes is twice as hard because not only do I miss London, I miss India more than I ever have!

Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better to settle for dominion status with our former colonisers so we could have been one big happy family! In any case, we Indians still think of England as our second Motherland and love her to death! Perhaps, a more accurate slogan during our Independence Struggle would have been, "Angrezon, Bharat chhodo...taki hum tumhare peeche aa sakein!" (“British, quit India...so we can follow you home!”)

PS - This post is dedicated to Medha, Dheer, Divya, Dhiren, Varun, Kanishk, Ali, Pallavi, Manyu, Herschel, Farhad, Neha, Ankit, Khushbu, Sasha, Sonia, Peter, Valerie, Sharmin, Chris and Kate. Without you, London wouldn't have been the same!

Notes:
1. A Mother for Choco: http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Choco-Paperstar-Keiko-Kasza/dp/0698113640#
2. This safety issue made me realise what kind of civil liberties I was missing at home and till date this is one of the biggest reasons against moving back to Delhi.

I'm bringing Lazy back...

2009-04-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

Privet vsyem!

I know I have been ridiculously out-of-action. Not because things haven't been happening but because so much has been happening that...well...I have felt too tired to write about it and generally submitted to the voice of the lazy 'devil' Aanch that sits on my left shoulder...

So what now? Well, these are difficult economic times so we've had to regrettably fire her. And now, I, under the sound guidance of my halo-bearing 'angel' Aanch, am back at your service...

Here's what you've missed:

1. Temperatures continue to be in-tune with oil prices i.e. they're heading back up. Spring is slowly approaching. The cute-little flower buds and happy song-birds that they used to show in Bambi and Lion King to depict Spring still seem like a cruel joke but the days are getting longer, DST has ticked away, the Sun is becoming more than just a guest-star in my Bollywood life and the snow and ice are slowly melting to reveal the long-forgotten colours and textures of the mud and gravel underneath (along with the occasional unpleasantries of perfectly-preserved pre-Winter dog excrement...)

2. Dorota (my Polish flatmate) and I went to Murmansk, the largest city in the world north of the Arctic Circle. I have to say, while it felt great to be so far up-north (See satellite image: http://www.maplandia.com/russia/murmanskaya-oblast/kolskiy-rayon/murmansk/), the 20 hours we spent there sandwiched between 27 hours of train journey each way, were more than enough! The city is bigger than I expected but still small enough so we were able to walk a big chunk in around 4 hours. But among the Alyosha statue overlooking the Kola Inlet, the Museum of Regional Studies (Probably the № 1 employer of taxidermists in Murmansk), the red-brick Lighthouse and the rather stinky Aquarium, the highlight of my Murmansk trip was falling waist-deep in snow! Even though, at one point I was terrified - because even when Dorota tried to pull me out, there was no ground beneath my feet on which I could have pushed myself up and out and any attempt to this end only sank me deeper into the snow – without this incident, there would be little else worth remembering from Murmansk!

3. This is an uncomfortable time of the year for a brown girl in Saint-Petersburg. 20th April is Adolf Hitler’s birthday and whilst I really don’t care about Nazi-boy’s birthday, I do have to watch out for racial hatred in Europe’s skin-head capital. My Schengen won’t be ready in time, so my planned escape to Latvia is essentially turning itself into a self-imposed house-arrest to avoid getting beaten-up or stabbed. (Hmmm...every beautiful city has an ugly face!) From what I hear, sometimes even the Police turn a blind-eye to Neo-Nazi activities and it’s only the old, wobbly Babushkas who shout at these xenophobic trouble-makers. I guess, if you survived the Leningrad blockade, very little in life must scare you! Kind of makes you wonder why Supernanny wasn’t originally Russian instead...

That’s all for now. I must say that the ‘devil’ Aanch sabotaged me again. I sat down in front of the computer to write a cover letter for a job application but ended up doing this blog-entry instead. Oh well, just coz we fired her doesn’t mean she isn’t good at what she does...

Back to work now...

Gone in sixty seconds...

2009-02-22T16:01:00.000-08:00

If attitude is contagious then a certain lady is guilty of unleashing an epidemic. To do her justice, one may have to liken her spirit to a love-poem that cascaded from the tip of Pushkin's feather-pen or a face stroked by Michelangelo's brush that paled everything else on the canvas...

It was the most ordinary, almost missable chance encounter when Mia and I were crossing the road to get home. It was a red light but the only two cars coming in our direction were far enough so we started to walk to the divider.

Suddenly, someone called out to us, "Girls, wait for me..." And there came this easily-over-80 lady, wearing a grey headscarf outlined by her silver curls, wearing a black knee-length overcoat and a long-skirt that exposed a bit of her fragile legs wrapped in skin-colour stockings and worn-out black men's shoes, dashing forward with her walking stick. "Please help me cross the road!"

Without question, Mia and I held her elbows on either side and did exactly that. When we got to the divider, the light turned green making the second half of the road even easier to cross. But now she didn't want to go!

"Come on. We'll take you to the other side," I said, unable to conceal my confusion at her sudden resistance.

"Don't worry. I have to wait for them," she chuckled toothlessly and turned back teasingly to the other side of the road, where her other friends had just started to cross seeing the green signal.

"Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" I think I was pleading at this point.

"Thank you very much for your help!" She said dismissing my question and then started to cross the road leaving her friends way behind.

Mia and I exchanged a look of complete amazement. Given her age, she had obviously survived the Seige of Leningrad and probably lost most of her dear ones then and in the years that followed when post-war famine plagued the Soviet Union. Her defiant eyes had obviously seen the Stalinist terror and probably knew some who had been sent to the Gulag and maybe she herself had been imprisoned! She had seen the Khrushchevs, the Brezhnevs, the Gorbachevs, the Yelstins and the Putins. She had probably lost everything she 'owned' in 1992 and 1997 under the capitalism shock and the currency crisis...

...And here she was jumping a red-light just so she could tease her friends for not being as fast as her!

"I want to be just like her when I'm that old," Mia said.

"I was just thinking of that!" I nodded as she walked past us!

And in that moment, she was my Russia! This is the unconquerable spirit I am so hopelessly in love with...

65 years on...

2009-01-28T09:08:00.000-08:00

Женя умерла 28 декабря в 12.00 час. утра 1941 г. (Zhenya died at 12:00 AM on 28th December 1941.)

This is how Tanya Savicheva(1), a 12 year-old girl from Petersburg, started her diary. And over the next 5 months, she added these notes:
“Grandma died at 3:00 PM on 25th January 1942
Leka died at 5:00 AM on 17th March 1942
Uncle Vasya died at 2:00 AM on 13th April 1942
Uncle Lesha died at 4:00 PM on 10th May 1942
Mama died at 7:30 AM on 13th May 1942
Savichevs died. Everyone died.”

8th September 1941 - 27th January 1944 – 872 days and 872 nights – this was the duration of the Siege of Leningrad. (Also known as the Leningrad Blockade)
1.5 million – This was the number of civilians and soldiers it killed.
1.4 million – This was the number of people who were evacuated from the besieged city but most died during evacuation due to Nazi bombardment or hunger.

I don’t want to do a Mastercard by comparing these deaths to others but just to give you an idea of the magnitude - This is 2.0% of the total deaths in the Second World War, 6.5% of those in Soviet Union, 20.7% of those in Nazi Germany, 333.5% of those in the UK and 358.4% of those in the United States(2). And this is math worked off the 1.5 million number and does not include any deaths during evacuation!

It is thus hardly a surprise that even though in the run up 27th January (the date when the Blockade ended), Saint Petersburg proudly wears patriotic flags, slogans and banners, it isn’t a day when the city celebrates; it’s a day when she remembers and mourns her dead.

It is impossible to live in Petersburg and not bump into people’s recollections of the Blockade. My Conversation teacher, Masha knew a lady who told her that when there was no food left, people ate paper, cement and concrete from walls, birds, dogs, cats, horses, rats, parts of their own flesh and even resorted to cannibalism. My friend Lida’s grandmother told her that her neighbours tried to steal her younger sister so they could eat her!

It is very easy to wince at these words and these stories but I cannot even imagine the helplessness and plight that could encourage such actions. One can only live it to know what it must be like. My own words, emotions and experiences fail me!

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the man who spent 8 years in the Gulag (Soviet Forced Labour Camps) and was the first voice to tell the world of their existence, said:

“First Cell, First Love
How is one to take the title of this chapter? A cell and love in the same breath? Ah, well, probably it has to do with Leningrad during the blockade – and you were imprisoned in the Big House. In that case it would be very understandable. That’s why you were still alive – because they shoved you in there. It was the best place in Leningrad – not only for the interrogators...In Leningrad in those days no one washed and everyone’s face was covered with a black crust, but in the Big House prisoners were given a hot shower every tenth day. Well, it’s true that only the corridors were heated – for the jailors. The cells were left unheated, but after all, there were water pipes in the cells that worked and a toilet, and where else in Leningrad could you find that?”(3)

Here is a man who endured 8 years of hunger, humiliation, terror and torture in a system that crushed anyone that was sucked into it and yet somehow, it was better than being a free man out in the street in Leningrad during the Blockade!

If a picture says a thousand words, a video can hopefully do even better. Do spare three and a half minutes, if you can, to remember Leningrad and her people: http://video.mail.ru/mail/lopes290968/146/152.html

“Leningrad must die of starvation,” Hitler had roared. But she stands. Not only that, she has flourished as the cultural capital of Russia and an important business centre. She is a seductress but she doesn’t lure you with empty promises! Her beauty radiates from the golden domes of her churches as she elegantly dances along the gentle curves of her rivers and canals. Her palaces and museums adorn her soft skin and her gardens and parks give her a fresh energy with which she teases and surprises you. But most of all, much like her Kazan Cathedral, she welcomes you with arms wide open. And right now, she is home and for that I am grateful. Leningrad – I salute you!

Notes:
1. More on Tanya Savicheva and her diary, which was used as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanya_Savicheva

2. The numbers may ignore the fact that Soviet Union had a larger population compared to Nazi Germany, UK and US but consider the fact that at the end of the war, the numbers of deaths in these countries as percentage of 1939 populations were recorded at 10.38%, 0.94% and 0.32% respectively. For the Soviet Union, this number stood at 13.71%. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

3. From Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago (The Harvill Press 2003. Copyright © – The Russian Social Fund, 1985)

More on the Siege of Leningrad: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad

Freako-matri-nomics!

2009-01-25T00:55:00.000-08:00

23 is a dangerous age! Nowadays, when the phone rings and my friends have “good news” or “something exciting” to report, it’s usually that they have just gotten engaged or fixed the wedding date or are pregnant...

Now, this is great. It’s a big moment in their lives and I feel very touched that I am one the first people they think of sharing these things with. Being here in Russia, it’s reassuring to see that our friendship has stood the test of distance...if only because we are glued to Google Talk or Skype half the time!

With a surge in such good news and somethings exciting, there are bound to be mistakes when occasionally someone somewhere sends the wedding or engagement invite to my address in Delhi, where I have not lived for the last 4.5 years! Sounds innocent enough, right? Well it is...till my mom or some other older woman in the family gets to it and thereon for the next month or so, all sentences begin with the fatal, “Aanchal, you’re getting older now...and you’re not married...”

What ensues is a battle for my independence, a struggle to retain the right to determine my future, for Liberty, Freedom and Justice – the fight to, at any cost, escape an arranged marriage!

Let me make my position clear – I do see some merit in arranged marriages. For one, both people are ready to make a commitment so it saves a lot of heart-ache that might come with a relationship in which one party is ready to tie the knot but the other one isn’t quite there yet! The second benefit, which probably doesn’t come with relationships, is ‘even’ expectations. Both parties are fairly clear on what the other wants from the very start so conflict on expectations is practically squeezed out. Let’s just say, it’s like walking into a mall with a shopping list so the chances that you end up with something you didn’t want after investing a lot of time looking for it are pretty slim.

But just because I see some health benefits of alcohol doesn’t mean I’m ready for what could be the worst hangover of my life! After all, arranged marriages unlike long-tested relationships come with the twin-problems that economists call moral hazard and adverse selection!

What am I talking about?

Well for starters, when parents arrange a match, just because they feel it is good for us doesn’t mean it actually is! Am at no level doubting their saintly intentions but I can’t help wonder that since they wouldn’t have to live with the consequences of their mistake, they are perhaps less cautious with our lives! The classic principal-agent problem under moral hazard!

And my biggest fear with those who end themselves up on the arranged marriages market is adverse selection! (Look at the size of this industry in India and it would be unfair to call it anything but a market!)

In economics, adverse selection describes the behaviour of insurance seekers – a person who displays riskier behaviour or is at a greater risk of loss is more likely to take up insurance than a person who is more risk averse and has his act together. So similarly, a person who was unable to make a relationship work or was unable to find a partner through normal means is more likely to end up on the arranged marriages market than someone who was able to make it all work!

Of course, my analysis is rather naive and doesn’t consider the many complications that go behind making relationships work. But the truth is out – moral hazard and adverse selection exist in this market and for that reason, I want to stay as far away as I can from arranged marriages! This isn’t to say that arranged marriages don’t work. I know many people who are very happily (‘arranged’ly) married!

It is said that marriages are made in heaven so God has to make sure we meet ‘the one’. But He probably got tired of giving us low tolerance to alcohol or creating perfect chance coincidence meetings – giving us the same bad taste in movies or taking us to the same dance class where we could bond over how inelastic we are!

And then He came up with arranged marriages so He could just free-ride of our parents’ efforts and the world would still run...

Ramblings of an uninhabited mind...

2008-11-21T11:43:00.000-08:00

Shoe-Shopping

This title is as unimaginative and boring as the activity itself.

Let me let you in on one of my best kept secrets - When it comes to shopping, I was born the wrong sex. And for some horrible reason, it is presumed that all women are just supposed to know this as if it were some genetically-embedded, pre-historic basic instinct that the survival of the entire species depended on! Not only am I treated like a social outcast when I don't go over shopping-bag(s) full of the day's kill with my female friends, when I'm in a shopping-mall, I actually feel like a fish out of water!

So now that we have established that I belong to that small, dying breed of women who don't believe in the benefits of retail-therapy (even though I have had some ridiculously impulsive adventures with my debit card), you will understand how hard it is for me to be stuck in Russia at the start of the winter in dire need of a brand-new winter wardrobe!

Last week it became evident that I had dealt my best card in terms of winter-clothing. As the temperature dipped below my appetite for shopping, I knew it was time to go sh...shh...shop! So Anya, Meritxell and I made it a Ladies' Day Out sort of a thing and went to MEGA at Ulitsa Dibenko.

With every shop, every try-room, every sweater and every shoe, I was just craving to find something I would like so I could buy what I needed and get the hell out of there. A couple of hours down, we were done with my knit-wear items but one big thing still remained on the agenda - shoes! I needed winter-shoes that would keep the water and ice out and keep me warm.

If there's anything I hate more than shopping, it's shopping for shoes! I think it's probably because the pressure of getting it right is much more. With clothes, you buy plenty. There's plenty of variety, colours, styles etc. And if you suddenly realise - within the 30 day return period - that it wasn't meant for you, you can still exchange it or get your money back. But shoes are a very different game. You buy fewer of them and hence wear the same thing more often. Plus, even if you wore it once or twice, worn shoes are practically impossible to return. And then there is the fact that a slightly wrong size with the clothes may make you look a little out of shape but a mistake like that on the shoe front would kill your feet! In fact, shoe shopping can be a lot like getting married!

And last Sunday proved to be the ultimate nightmare to pick a pair I would take home with me! There were black shoes, brown shoes, white, beige and grey. There were boots with fur and no heels, there were boots with heels and no fur. Some looked too feminine and some didn't look feminine enough. After a couple of hours, I realised there was no scope for love at first sight. Nothing seemed to impress me much, nothing caught my eye that I would even want to try it...

Given my desperate situation - the fact I was running out of time and really needed winter shoes for the following week's snow forecasts, Anya and Meritxell began to arrange a match. I still don't think I was feeling it yet with any pair of shoes I saw but I guess at least I had started to try them out. Some that didn't look so nice initially, didn't look so bad when I tried them but within five minutes started to hurt! Some others looked great but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get my feet into them! Another couple of hours later, I had started to doubt my feet. Wasn't there any pair of shoes that would fit? Wasn't there anything that would look nice and feel great? Meritxell's boots were so nice and comfy and Anya's shoes - cool and classy. Was there really nothing out there for me? Was it too much to ask to unite my feet and the ONE pair of shoes in holy matrimony till death do us apart? (And hopefully the shoe would predecease me!)

After much persuasion, consultation and walking around with one pair of black shoes at ECCO, I decided to buy them and take them home. They fit fine and felt good. Their soft and light fur lining inside was pampering. They looked a bit tougher than I usually like but the shop assistant said that they were water-proof, kept the warmth in and water out so I guess that was for a reason. Perhaps, I just grew into them. I took a deep-breath and walked down the store aisle holding this black pair in my left hand and my debit card in my right. This was it...

PS - Has it ever happened to you that you bought a pair of shoes and within 5 minutes of the purchase saw another pair that seemed to be so much sexier and cooler? I found something exactly like that at Zara...but oh well...I really meant it when I said, "till death do us apart!"

I'm a Slave 4 U

Last thing before I kick-start my Saturday morning (now afternoon) with something more productive than blogging about shoe-shopping...

I have come to realise that at this time in St. Petersburg all Britney Spears songs can be sung to the Sun (that big yellow thing in the sky that's absconding!)

(Oh baby baby...Oh baby baby)
Oh baby baby, how was I supposed to know
That something wasnt right here...
Oh baby baby, I shouldn't have let you goooooo
And now you're out of sight (yeah)
Show me how you want it to be
Tell me baby coz I need to know now, oh because...
My loneliness is killing me (and I...)
I must confess I still believe (still believe...)
When I'm not with you I lose my mind
Give me a sign, hit me baby one more time!

Or...

It’s getting late to give you up
I took a sip from my devil's cup
Slowly...it’s taking over me

With a taste of your lips
I'm on a ride
You're toxic, I'm slipping under
With a taste of a poison paradise
I'm addicted to you...Don't you know that you're toxic!
And I love what you do...Don't you know that you're toxic!
Intoxicate me now
With your lovin' now
I think I'm ready now

And the winner is...

What's practical and logical - What the hell, who cares?
All I know is I'm so happy when you're dancing there
I'm a sla-a-a-a-ave for you....
I cannot hold it; I cannot control it
I'm a sla-a-a-a-ave for you....
I won't deny it; I'm not trying to hide it
Baby, don't you wanna, dance upon me?

Where did the Fire go?

2008-11-04T08:55:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I wonder what happened to India? Are we the same nation of Mahatma Gandhi, Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh that ranks as one of the lowest on Transparency International surveys because corruption has gotten the better of the Mera Bharat Mahaan (My India is Great) idea?

Today, I stumbled upon an amazing poem written by Ram Prasad Bismil, one of India's greatest freedom fighters, 'Safaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai' (The desire for sacrifice is now in our hearts) I've known of it for ages but I think today was the first time I actually listened to what it was saying! I will translate my favourite lines but if you don't speak Hindi/Urdu, I know I cannot recreate the effect this poem has. So do forgive me for unfortunately, much will get lost in translation!

Hum to ghar se nikale hi the bandh kar sar pe kafan
Jaan hatheli par liye lo bad chalein hain yeh kadam
Zindagi to apni mehmaan maut ki mehfil me hai
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab humare dil mein hai
...
Duur rah paye jo hamse, dum kanha manzil mein hai
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab humare dil mein hai

(We left our homes dressed in cerements
We march on knowing that we may have to give up our lives
Our life is but a brief guest in this atmosphere of death
The desire for sacrifice is now in our hearts
...
There isn't a goal that has the strength to keep itself from us
The desire for sacrifice is now in our hearts)

These bits are my favourite because they make me cry! I feel overcome by this infectious desire that Azad and Bhagat Singh had to change India and get independence from the Brits! If you aren't Indian (or Pakistani or Bangladeshi), those names are probably not familiar to you! Gandhi may have won us our Independence but these names are as immortal, in fact their sacrifice greater than Gandhi's. Hate me all you want but I feel that Gandhi made the Indian Independence Movement some sort of a spiritual struggle, a mental experiment so to speak. And who knows if we got independence because of the over-celebrated ahimsa (non-violence) or as one consipracy theory alleges, because her Majesty's treasury had nothing left in it after the Second World War to run a country as large as ours!

Don't get me wrong! I don't think one should kill people to achieve things. I think 'life' - whoever's it is - is precious and should be respected. But what if you are cornered? Isn't it our basic instinct to fight? Does a gazelle sit and practice non-violence in front of a hungry lioness hoping the latter will become calorie conscious and let its meal go?

Non-violence had its benefits. The public opinion in Britain was in our favour. Had we been blowing up trains and public places where, believe it or not "Dogs and Indians (were) not allowed", the colonial whip would have certainly fallen harder on our spine! But I think non-violence created tonnes and tonnes of free-riders (who got independence for no sacrifice!) and it left this free-riding attitude in our blood! Had we been fighting and dying together, perhaps Pakistan would never have been created because it would have been our struggle - something we did together, something we died for together, something we both valued! But no, instead we were non-violently sitting on our asses and debating the two nation theory!

When I look at Russia, the story is so different. Till date, this country celebrates its war-heroes! And these were not just Admirals and Generals, these were ordinary people who ran buses, worked in the post-offices, studied at schools, stayed at home and took care of the children. When the shit hit the fan, while the Admirals and Generals gave orders and steered their forces, these people drove tanks, decoded enemy messages and signals, worked in ammunition factories and took care of the sick in hospitals. An estimated 20 million people died from the Soviet Union in the Second World War and virtually every family was affected. And whilst British and American history books would have you believe that they won the war, the truth is that they reached Berlin after the Soviets did!

And here is where I start to get angry. The Brits were not giving India freedom but they wanted her people to fight a war for freedom in Europe! Rudyard Kipling could just as easily have called his book, "The White Man's Hypocrisy". And what's worse is that India has forgotten that we did this! In my knowledge (and please correct me if I'm wrong), India Gate is the only monument for Indian soldiers who died in WWI and it wasn't even created by Indians but by the British architect Edwin Lutyens! And, I am yet to come across ANY Second World War monument in India!

This is how we forget things- When I did history in school, I knew of only two parties: Gandhi's The Indian National Congress and The Muslim League. There was never a squeak about The Hindu Mahasabha (the present day BJP) or Azad's Hindu Socialist Republican Association etc. Just like the people in Britain and America who believe that they won the war, we think Gandhi and the Congress won us independence through non-violence! We obviously would not have gotten there without them, but why aren't other heroes as (or even less) celebrated? Why was the statue of Bhagat Singh recently unveiled at the Indian Parliament an absolutely farcical representation of the man? Why has Gandhi hijacked Indian currency notes? Don't Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Lala Lajpat Rai, Ashfaqullah Khan...have likeable faces?

When we think we got independence through non-violence, we think we can get anyting through non-violence. And we often interpret non-violence as not doing anything!

There is a terrorist attack - The Government needs to increase security and hunt these people down
A 5 year old girl gets raped - This will never happen to me plus there are so many women's organisations and I'm sure they'll make plenty of noise
Pot-holes on Delhi roads because of cement corruption - Shouldn't the Supreme Court start a Public Interest Litigation?
Mayawati spends the State Contingency Fund money for her birthday - I am quite horrified but let me change the channel and watch something else
The media thinks the Shah Rukh-Salman fight is bigger than the 300 million people in India who go the bed hungry everyday - Hmmm, so do I!

Do the likes of Azad and Bhagat Singh ever wonder that this is what they died for? For wimps like us??? (And I'm equally guilty because sometimes I think things are too dirty for me to clean-up that I don't even try!)

Come on guys - Where did the Fire go? Let's pick a cause, anything at all, even a small one, and do something, anything at all so that we are not guilty of ignoring the great sacrifices that went into getting this independence we take for granted!

Inquilab Zindabad!

What's in a date?

2008-10-29T09:48:00.001-07:00

A lot if you ask me! And I think getting dates right is important. In fact, in my world, it's more noble to forget a date (out of ignorance or a chance accident or any other excuse you may have) than to get it wrong because to me that only indicates that either you don't pay attention to hard-facts or you simply don't care enough to get them right.

Where am I heading with this? Let me ask you a question. Actually to drive my point home, let me make that many questions. Do you wish people Happy New Year on 28th December? Does your bf/gf get his/her Valentine's Day card (if at all) on 12th Feb? Is Women's Day celebrated on 5th March?

Then why...why oh why have people been wishing me Happy Birthday all week? (Did that narcissism catch you off-guard?) I absolutely hate it! (Not the narcissism but the being wished happy birthday before the actual date...)

Ten years ago, it used to be fun to see who remembered and who didn't. Facebook has taken that simple pleasure away from me! Now everyone is sent reminders and this information is flashed on the Home screen from 72 hours in advance. I don't want to sound ungrateful but perhaps only Mid-nighters retain their charm.

It all started on Monday, 27th October. I logged in to my email account to find an email from my Dad saying, "Happy Birthday...(and other senti stuff)". Believe me, nothing can shake your faith in this world more than your parent getting the date wrong. My first reaction was to check the date. My second was to call him and ask if it had always been the 27th and they had only just realised 23 years after the event that they had always got it wrong. (The event being my birth, of course!)

So I called him - that's too burning a question to not raise. And he explained that he sent it 5 days earlier because he wouldn't have internet access till 31st.

"Then why not send it on 31st itself? After all, that is my birthdate...isn't it?" I yelped all confused.
"Yes but between now and midnight on 31st, this was the only slot so I thought I would send it now," he said, sounding extremely content with himself. There is something you should know about my Dad. Every 31st October, he starts calling me from the time it's midnight in Japan to the time the Sun sets in Hawaii. I think somehow he feels the joy of having his first child all over again so much so that he can never get enough of sharing it with me! And this emailing me 5 days in advance was just another incarnation of this sentiment...

So I decided to overlook that and life went on...till this morning. When I woke up and logged into Facebook, I was once again disappointed. A certain person (who must not be named so we will call her (or him) You-Know-Who as a tribute to Lord Voldemort of Harry Potter fame) had wished me a very happy birthday. Now ordinarliy, I would have bitten my lip and gotten over this little incident but this time, I was a bit more annoyed than on the average occassion. You see, You-Know-Who and I aren't really friends or anything. Except on Facebook, where one sometimes accepts friends out of social courtesy than a desire to snoop into their life and share your crazy photographs with them. And that's when it was so apparent - this person obviously knew my birthday was around the corner because Facebook was advertising it! (Uggghhh...)

But even then, why would you pretend you are 2 full earth rotations ahead of me and wish me 48 hours before my birthday??? Do I look like someone who cannot wait till the actual date? Or is You-Know-Who too lazy to log in two days later and do the deed? Or does You-Know-Who think she (or he) will forget it by then despite that impersonal-as-hell Facebook reminder?

I still haven't replied to You-Know-Who and I probably won't till my anger (I know that's a strong word but I can't think of anything else that fits the bill) subsides a little and I sound a little grateful for the "careful thought"!

Here's the deal people: If you are reading this, you're old enough to remember your birthday. And you never forget the date because it's your day! Even 23 years on, I think of it as my special day. But little surprise remains when the likes of Facebook and BirthdayAlarm advertise it as if some stupid boy-band were going to perform in town in a couple of days. I used to say, "Thank you for remembering my birthday" but that seems to have become too much of a presumption these days. So the only little surprise that remains is to NOT hear about it till the actual day - just in case someone somewhere wakes up, looks at the date in his watch and says, "Oh! It's Aanchal's birthday today. Let me give her a call..."

Moscow, Day 3: The famous dead…

2008-10-05T04:25:00.000-07:00

The last day was bright and active. The Sun was out and I had fully recovered from the fatigue accumulated over the last few days. So, I packed my belongings in my Lehman rucksack (a highly coveted souvenir now!) and headed out early.

My first stop was the Novodevichy Cathedral near Sportivnaya. To be honest, I had almost overlooked this one. But when Sergey said that it is definitely worth a visit, I read up my Lonely Planet on it and realised that if for nothing else, I was going to go there to see a particular person.

Some Russian women like Catherine, the Great and Valentina Tereshkova are famous of their own accord. But most - as in other cultures - are famous because of the men they were with. And I was interested in precisely such a person. The Novodevichy grounds are the final resting place of Nadyezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin’s second wife!

I walked everywhere within the walls of the Cathedral. My Lonely Planet had a picture of her tomb so I would have recognised her immediately. But even after 30 minutes of an unsuccessful safari, I hadn’t found her. My time at the Cathedral had started to eat into the rest of my itinerary so I finally decided to open my dictionary to find the Russian word for ‘tomb’ and ask the information desk where she was. (I did bump into some very interesting people though. One Olga Mikhailovna Marinskaya had a witty sense of humour. Her tombstone, read, “Uvidimsya tam!” i.e. “See you there!”)

The lady at the desk told me that I needed to go to the Novodevichy Cemetery, which was next door. I took out my Lonely Planet to protest that she must be there at the Cathedral grounds itself and that’s when I realised that it did in fact say, “Cemetery”! Suddenly the words, “Attention to detail!” echoed in my head from the two years I had spent in investment-banking. I hate making mistakes and when I do, I can be unreasonably it-is-the-end-of-the-world hyper-critical of myself!

The Novodevichy Cemetery was just stunning! Never in my life have I seen such exquisitely beautiful tombstones! Everyone’s tombstone there silently demanded a few seconds of admiration and I felt so guilty for rushing through the cemetery to get to Mrs. Stalin! I followed the map and walked to one end of the cemetery. Even before I got to her, I recognised her. Not that her tombstone was the most beautiful but the glass case around hers, probably to protect the underlying stone from Russia’s unfriendly climate, immediately gave away her VIP status!

The Sun peeked through the canopy on to her white granite face that emerged from a plain column, on which the inscription read, “Nadyezhda Sergeivna Alliluyeva Stalina; 1901-1932”. Her right hand emerged inconspicuously and rested under her chin, apparently a tombstone paradigm to indicate that the person had committed suicide.

As I left the cemetery, I saw many people taking photos near the entrance against a stone that was painstakingly done to look like the Russian flag, swollen in some places as if laden with the wind. I walked to it and clicked a couple of photos myself. And then suddenly, I saw the inscription across it, “Boris Nikolaivich Yelstin; 1931-2007”. This is where the first Russian President lay buried! The Russian flag was the perfect posthumous garb for him. My Lonely Planet had obviously not prepared me for him as it was the 2006 edition but I felt lucky to have bumped into the ex-President!

Walking out of Novodevichy, a peculiar feeling overcame me. During the Second World War, many dead in Stalingrad, Leningrad and hundreds of other cities were dumped as one giant mass of rotting bodies into huge cavities dug overnight in the ground. This was because during the War there was no space in cemeteries to carry out deserved burials. And here was Novodevichy, an elite burial ground with tombstones carved to perfection and adorned with various motifs and plaques…

I wonder if Marx and Lenin have organised a revolution to overthrow this bourgeoisie on the other side of life as well!

Moscow, Day 2: Communism’s Mummy

2008-10-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

In Russia, they say “Lenin zhil, zhit i budet zhit’!” (Lenin lived, lives and will live!) Move over King Tut, Communism has it’s own Mummy - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Marx may have written The Communist Manifesto but it was Lenin who delivered. And for that reason every city in Russia has a Lenin Square, a Lenin Avenue and a Lenin Street. But Moscow has one more thing. Moscow has Lenin himself!

On Sunday morning, when I got to Krasnaya Ploschad, it was easy to guess what most people were there for. A long line extended all the way to the end of the Square and it looked like Lenin had more security in death than when alive! Nothing was allowed inside the mausoleum - no bags, phones or cameras. Moreover, you were not allowed to speak lest you would disturb this ‘great’ (a debatable adjective!) man’s slumber.

No signs were posted; no instructions given, but things were clearly understood. People followed those who were in front of them. Once you crossed the metal detectors, the guards indicated the way by their hands. The entrance of the mausoleum was dark. I went down the black malachite staircase and turned right, following a guard’s muted signal. Everything there - from the dim light to the reticence to the dark décor - reinforced the melancholy of the mausoleum.

I walked into another dark chamber where only one soft-light was shining on the object of everyone‘s interest. And this is where he lay in his glass coffin. I walked through the side and to the front of the glass case, right opposite him. Lenin was smartly dressed in a dark blue (or black) suit. The palm of his right hand was lightly clenched, his left weakly stretched out. His face was drained of any colour and if you looked hard enough, you could sense his pain. His last wish was to be buried next to his mother in St. Petersburg. But Stalin wouldn’t let that be. And since Stalin, the mausoleum has become some sort of a hybrid between a temple of communism and a popular tourist attraction.

Perhaps, one day someone sitting in the Kremlin will change this and Lenin will rest in peace. But for now, he remains incarcerated behind glass walls, coated in layers of immortalising chemicals and continues to pay the price for his fame and influence. And as long as he is out there, Russia’s love-hate relationship with him will go on…

Moscow, Day 1: The Day I defeated God

2008-10-02T12:47:00.000-07:00

I woke up at about 5:40 AM, just 10 minutes before the train was to reach Moscow’s Leningradsky Station. As I slipped out of my blanket to get ready, I could feel the chill through the train’s walls. Yandex had predicted light showers in Moscow but it had also predicted light showers in St. Pete all week, when we were pampered by the Sun so I was bullish on the weather conditions despite my first impressions.

When I stepped out of the train, I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, taking my own sweet time to soak in a bit of Moscow right there, with a complete disregard for those behind me. (This is what happens when you watch too many Bollywood movies. You think this is an absolutely legit way of entering a new city!) For a time when it was cold and pitch-dark, Moscow displayed an unusual energy. People scurried on the platform, kiosks were already busy, a neon-blue ‘МОСКВА' sign told you where the main entrance was and taxi-drivers pounced on you as soon as you entered the main hall. In the main hall, Lenin’s porcelain bust inspected everyone from atop a column that dwarfed every other structure. And there I was under that column, my eyes betraying that I hadn’t slept much on the train but full of an emotion that was stronger still - that of hunger. I was starving for Moscow!

From the station, I took the metro to Sportivnaya, where I was going to stay with my friend, Aishwarya. Even though Moscow is bigger than St. Pete, the metro makes it seem smaller. With its tentacles entrenched all over the city, the Moscow Metropolitan ensures that you are never more than 45 minutes away from your destination!

After the usual exchange of pleasantries, Aish and I headed out to the city centre. As we got out, I realised one thing - Yandex was right this time. It had started to rain. But I’m a Delhi girl, who is used to heavy monsoons. I wasn’t going to let this spatter bother me!

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. This probably shouldn’t have been the first stop. I was dying to see the Kremlin, Krasnaya Ploschad (Red Square), and St. Vasil’s Cathedral, so this Cathedral was a reluctant stop and only because it was on our way to Krasnaya Ploschad. My impatience was visible even through the layers of warm clothes, I was wrapped under. I seemed to ignore the imposing character of the Cathedral, its golden domes and the gardens that skirted it. Lenin would have loved me - I was thinking only Red! And it was perhaps this blasphemy that enraged God. Ten minutes later, the wind had picked up speed and it was raining even harder!

The walk to the Kremlin from the Cathedral had become a trek. The wind clawed at my face and the rain dampened my overcoat and gloves. Crossing the roads was tricky as well. I realised Moscow isn’t pedestrian-friendly and zebra-crossings were rare. This meant you had to gamble every time you crossed the road. Ordinarily, thanks to my Indian origin, even that isn’t a problem but judging the distance and speed of cars in the rain was getting harder and harder .
After a couple of trips in and out of my gloves to click photographs, the fingers of my right hand were dissolving into senselessness. I was breathing in ice and breathing out vapour. I had clearly picked the wrong day to upset God. I went into a few grocery stores asking for cognac to warm up but vodka was all they would offer. And of all the Russian things I love, vodka isn’t one of them!

We finally got to the Kremlin. Somehow! God may be bigger and better than me but I am more stubborn than he estimates. I wasn’t going to seek refuge; the Kremlin tour continued! (Notice how self-obsessed I am and keep saying things like “I wasn’t going to seek refuge”. The Kremlin was absolutely flooded with tourists like myself!)

Aish and I walked for about 4 hours in the rain. We went in and out of cathedrals and exhibitions - sometimes just to get warm! Kremlin’s walls hid so much within them - the golden domes and icon paintings of the various churches, the Diamond Fund exhibition, the Armoury, the Tsar Bell and Cannon! Even though my appetite for vodka was increasing; the more I saw, the more I was determined to see.

Finally, we walked through the Alexandrovsky Garden to Voskreesenye Gate where Marshall Zhukov’s statue greeted us. And there I saw it! Across Krasnaya Ploschad - St. Vasil’s Cathedral! It was so beautiful! I just couldn't control myself and screamed like a little child! (Recall Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, when she sees the Eiffel Tower from Petrovsky’s balcony. It was exactly like that, only I wasn’t being paid thousands of dollars to behave like an idiot!) I have seen St Vasil’s a hundred times on TV and in pictures but nothing, NOTHING compares to the frenzy of colours that stands before you! It’s like the difference between staring at a bottle of wine and getting intoxicated; between literotica and an orgasm! You just have to go to there to see what I’m talking about!

But before I could even look around the Square, a sudden commotion started. Everyone began to flock to the middle of the Square, where a band had started to play and I heard horses’ tap. “The Change of Guards!” I said as Aish and I ran to find a little crevice in the wall of tourists that had already formed. And what a show! The co-ordination was impeccable; the tricks, enviable! My favourite was when in the file of guards, each would lock his bayonet down on the ground a second after his predecessor creating a domino-like effect! The Kremlin Guards would give their counterparts at the Buckingham Palace a run for their money! 20 minutes later, the Square was left with a lot of satisfied tourists and some horse-shit! (The former dispersed and the latter was cleaned immediately.)

That’s when I started to absorb all that was around me. St Vasil’s in front, Kremlin’s red-brick wall and Lenin’s Mausoleum to my right, the History Museum behind me and an exquisite building that covered the entire left side of the Square!
“What’s this?” I asked Aish.
“The GUM.”
“The GUM? This is the GUM? The Gosudarstveni Universalni Magasin?” (The State Universal Store). This building’s entrance resembled the Winter Palace’s Jordan Staircase. In style it could shame Harrod’s and its collection had all the top brands in the world! But what had surprised me was that this was a State store - a wreck of the Soviet Empire - and it was so far away from the impoverished image I had in mind!

After spending a long time at the Kremlin and Krasnaya Ploschad, we made our way Park Pobyedi, which was home to the monument of Russia’s victory in the Second World War. When we came out of the metro station, I saw that it wasn’t raining anymore and the Sun played hide-and-seek behind the clouds. I guess even God needs a break ;) To be honest, the Sun brought welcome respite. My overcoat and jeans were wet. The wind had tested me all day. My hands were numb and my legs exhausted. My hair was in a complete disarray and my eyes blood-red with insomnia.(I looked perfect for a George Romero movie!) I was crumbling under fatigue but I was happy that I hadn‘t let the weather cripple me. I had done my full day’s worth of sight-seeing and most of all, I hadn’t betrayed my religion by drinking vodka. (My religion is cognac…and champagne…and B-52...but not vodka!)

Resilience is always rewarded in Russia. And once again, I was rewarded in the form of the massive obelisk in front of me. As Aish and I walked closer, we saw its reflection in the little pools of water the rain had left. An arc caressed the giant column from behind and the way up the platforms and stairs was paved by small bronze and malachite structures that hailed the achievements of the battle various - Leningrad, Ukraine, Minsk…

The 142m long obelisk itself - where every 10 cms represents a day of the war - bore names of the various cities that had fought the war - Moscow, Stalingrad, Leningrad, Kiev, Sevastopol…

Just in front of the obelisk, stood the giant figure of a horse-man, who had slayed a deadly snake with his spear. The bottom of the obelisk was adorned by flowers and bouquets, a tribute to all those who perished in the war. Whether in the armed forces or not, they are all war heroes! And it is this sentiment I admire the most about the Russians. They haven’t forgotten their war heroes, the heart-breaking conditions the war had created and the countless sacrifices made to protect the Motherland. No one celebrates their war heroes as much as the Russians do, and hats-off to that!

The rain was back with a vengeance but the day was almost over so it didn’t matter much! I had overcome the rain. And in some strange way, it felt like I had defeated God. (And the self-obsession continues...)

I was off to Oktyabrskaya to meet former Lehman colleagues for dinner at The Pancho Villa, an excellent Mexican restaurant on Bolshaya Yanimanka. It was a great night and good practice for my Russian. No points for guessing that, amongst other things, we all spoke about Lehman, which had filed for bankruptcy on 15th September 2008 becoming the largest corporate bankruptcy in history. At the end of the dinner, Sergey and Oksana did not let me pay for the tacos and tequila I had enjoyed. “Don’t worry, Aanchal! Thanks to Nomura, we still have jobs,” Oksana laughed.

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia!

2008-09-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia is my favourite word in the English language. To some extent that is because its the second longest word* and also because an attempt to decipher its etymology leaves you with words like Hippopotamus, Monster and Sesquipedalian. But what I absolutely love about this word is the irony it is impregnated with. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia is the fear of saying long words! Therefore, if you have this fear, you probably will never be able to express it - at least not with the word that means fear of saying long words!

And now I have a confession to make. I happen to be hipp...hipp... hippopoto... hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobic (Phew! That was close!) But you see, it's not English that's the problem - it's Russian! I'm no star polyglot but I think I speak and know of enough languages to say that Russian is probably the most daunting language for beginners that I have ever come across!

For instance, consider the word for 'Hello' in Russian - Zdravstvutye! The very first word you need to pick up is almost unpronouncable and the fact that its so long never helped!

Let's move on to manners. Spaciba, which means 'Thank you' is easy enough but have a look at 'Please' - Pozhalooesta! I may only now have gotten used to saying this without mistakes but for a long time, I found it easier to be uncivil than to verbalise this multi-syllabled monstrosity!

And then there are words that are not just unsympathetic to those who are new to learning the language but to tourists as well! Behold, the verb 'to travel' - puteshestvovat'! I love to travel but everytime I was asked in my Russian oral exam what my hobbies are - do you think I was ever able to get that one out? Of course not! So, I settled for less exciting things such as reading books and watching the idiot box!

Even worse, I was at a train station the other day and needed to ask if it was possible to travel to Moscow without my passport.** I knew how to say everything but my tongue divorced me when it came to saying puteshestvovat'! "Pute...pute", I struggled as the lady at the counter looked at me unimpressed! I felt so cheated! Didn't the fact that I could say the rest of the sentence correctly count? Weren't there any points for, "Mozhna, pute-whatever do Moskvi bez passporta?"

Which brings me to the longest word in the Russian language - dostoprimechaatelnosti, the word for 'sight-seeing'! Agreed that it isn't very short in English either but its made up of two reasonably short words that yield the meaning in combination, which therefore makes it easy to remember! (Or is it easy for me just because my English is better than my Russian?)

And here is my point - English has long words too but most of us - especially tourists to the UK or the US - will never use them! I can almost guarantee that it would be another 50 years before you hear (or read) the word, 'hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia' again! In fact, I can bet my life that for most of you, this was probably your first time! And you will probably never hear the longest word* in English in your entire life-time! But in Russian, that's not the case! These are everyday words and if you have decided to learn the language, you just have to overcome them!

* The longest word is 'Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis', which is a lung disease

** You need your passport for everything here - from using credit cards to getting a SIM card to travelling within the country! There is an interesting saying from the Soviet times, "Bez bumashki, mii bukashki" which means "Without a passport, we are little insects." It doesn't sound very interesting in English because things get lost in translation but it's pretty funny and reveals a lot!

Zita i Gita

2008-09-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

There are 1.1 billion Indians in this world. It, therefore, always comes as a bit of a shock when people exclaim, "Ti iz Indii!!!" (You're from India!!!) as if I'm some sort of a cross between a Hollywood celebrity and an endangered species!

Yesterday, I had gone to Novgorod, one of Russia's oldest cities around 180 kms south of St. Pete, with Hanne, Johan and Wille. At a souvenir shop next to the Vitoslavsky Museum of Wooden Architecture, as I checked out wooden toys, matryoshka dolls and jewellery, the Babushka who owned the shop stood up to help me out.

"40 roubles. 30 roubles", she said as my hands investigated the different objects.
"Sorok. Tridsat.", I repeated in Russian to indicate that I did speak the language a little and would prefer it over English.
And then almost out of the blue, she asked, "Devushka, ti iz Germanii?"
"Nyet, iz Indii", I replied.
"Iz Indii!!!!!"

She then went on to tell me that she had never seen an Indian in her entire life and that I should come to Novgorod and to her shop again in the Summer. And to stay true to her sentiment, she offered me a 10 rouble discount for the 2 bracelets I picked up. Whilst I was totally flattered by her gesture, I obviously paid my entire share. If only I could speak enough Russian to tell her that there were another 1.1 billion people exactly like me and it would be positively disgraceful to rob a Babushka of 10 roubles by pretending I was anything special!

But this was just the appetiser...

On the bus back to St. Pete, I was showing Hanne this month's National Geographic Traveller and the 10-page section they did on India. Suddenly, the man sitting in the seat behind me stood up and said the famous words, "Devushka, ti iz Indii???"

"Da", I said proudly, punctuating my response with an anticipatory silence to allow him to express his amazement and joy for having met me. (You can tell I have gotten used to this game!)

Vladimir could barely contain his excitement and told me he has always wanted to go to Balleiwood! Perhaps, I burst the bubble by telling him that Bollywood may be the biggest movie industry in the world but we don't have a location as exciting as Galleiwood's! (The Russians convert the English H to G - so its Gollywood, Galloween, Gimalayas, Gitler...)

Vladimir and his girl-friend, Galina were on their way to St. Pete from Moscow and had made a stop at Novgorod as well. When we got to St. Pete, we exchanged numbers and decided to meet the following day for a drink.

Today, Vova, Galya and I spoke about India at length - about Goa, cows, yoga and why someone would be stupid enough to leave India and come to place as cold as Russia! And we obviously spoke about Bollywood...

They told me that when they were little, they used to watch Bollywood movies dubbed in Russian on TV!
Galya asked me if I had seen the one with the Indian Charlie Chaplin. Upon a little probing, this turned out to be Raj Kapoor's Mera Naam Joker, unarguably the most famous Bollywood movie in Russia - if only because it had a Russian circus and Russian actors!

Then Vova jumped in his chair and said, "Aanchal, have you seen Zita i Gita?" ('i' is Russian for 'and')
"Zita i Gita? What is that?", I asked. Gita is definitely Indian but the Zita completely threw me off. I couldn't think of anything that fit the bill.
"It used to come on TV all the time...with the two girls...who looked like each other...and a fat lady...", Vova explained, unable to hide the desperation on his face.
"Seeta aur Geeta? Seeta aur Geeta! You have seen Seeta aur Geeta!!!"
Oh my God! They have seen Seeta aur Geeta! Even my sister hasn't seen Seeta aur Geeta!

How incredible! But it's a shame that India and Russia don't have such strong ties anymore. During the Cold-War, we may have been non-aligned but our non-alignment wore the Soviet hammer and sickle. Just as my parents were taught to call their parents "Mummy and Daddy" at a time when India was recovering from British colonialism, my sister and I were taught to call our parents, "Mama and Papa" which had become popular with the Soviet influence! When Indians were naming their children Natasha, Irina and Vanya, some in the USSR named theirs Indira!

And today, we may maintain workable relations with Russia but the strength of our relationship has certainly weakened! We have come to love America more! Even long after the Cold War, it seems like a choice between heads and tails on a coin toss, between a hit and a miss on the dartboard - you can't have both!

Perhaps, we need to get back on Russian television! What say, Bollywood?

Three weeks into Russia...

2008-09-10T08:19:00.000-07:00

Lazy is my middle name. For the sake of accuracy, it should have been my first and last name as well!

I have been thinking of breaking my cyber silence and starting a blog documenting my experiences in Russia for quite some time now and after 3 weeks and some very interesting experiences, I have finally decided to let my fingers loose on the keyboard...

This is my second time in St Petersburg. Admittedly, I wasn't as fascinated this time as much as in June 2006. Piter (as the locals call St Petersburg) and I have moved on from the initial rush into something more meaningful. But no matter what, I still feel like a child in a candy store - inquisitive and hungry!

Anyway, I won’t recap everything in the last three weeks so this will have to be short (and perhaps a bit abrupt) - just that I’ve been super-lucky with the people I have met. Have made some amazing friends - My flatmate, Meritxell (pr. Mari-chell) from Barcelona is my best-friend here! Then there are Richard (pr. Rick-hard) from Hungary, Hanne (pr. Honn-eh) from Norway and my room-mate, Junko from Japan. These are the people I have laughed and cried with - when the University bus broke down, when there was no hot-water and when it turned out that the heart-achingly handsome German guy* came with an engagement ring attached to his finger!

PS - I'm still recovering from the Heiner* incident...if God were Michelangelo, Heiner would have been the Sistine Chapel! Oh my God...I've started to sound like Carrie Bradshaw, haven't I?