Back in the USSR

Once upon a time, the Soviet Union was a source of vicarious fascination for many Indians. Now that it’s not, remembering the time before the West was won takes on another character altogether

01 June 2010
File photo of Gorbachev’s first visit to New Delhi and his meeting with Rajiv Gandhi in 1986.
© DELHI PRESS ARCHIVES
File photo of Gorbachev’s first visit to New Delhi and his meeting with Rajiv Gandhi in 1986.
© DELHI PRESS ARCHIVES

WHEN I WAS 15, I went to a rock concert at the Chinnaswamy Cricket Stadium on Mahatma Gandhi Road in Bangalore. This might have been another unexceptional event in my blameless youth if not for a few details: it was my first rock concert ever, the rockstar on display was Alla Pugacheva, and the whole thing was Soviet propaganda. If I close my eyes, I can still feel that evening. The year is 1988; I am wearing a sweater several sizes too big, neatly ironed blue jeans and my best black shoes. I am tagging along with a bunch of classmates who are all smoking More menthols—which I abhor. (An unintended consequence of state-monopolised information was that the baddest boys in Bangalore came of age smoking a cigarette intended for middle-aged American housewives). Alla sings, and who knows what she’s saying, but she has fluorescent purple hair and that’s all that counts. We are delirious, I am delirious, and in the twilight of our import substitution, this is my sunniest point.

Now, nostalgia is everywhere. In fact, it’s something of an epidemic. Johannes Hofer, a Swiss doctor who coined the term in 1668, would have appreciated the terminology. In his conception, nostalgia was a disease, its distinguishing symptom a disinterest in the present. More to the present, Svetlana Boym says that nostalgia is a rebellion against time. Over time, of course, the word has come to mean a longing for an idealised past. Personally, I prefer to think of it as a disease. My nostalgia is for an era when there was none, a time in which the future was always bright and usually unavailable.

Irony can be a chronic condition, too.

Achal Prabhala is a researcher and writer based in Bengaluru.

Keywords: Soviet Union Rajiv Gandhi vicarious fascination Alla Pugacheva Soviet propaganda Johannes Hofer nostalgia Gorbachev Kolkhoz Achal Prabala
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