INTRODUCTION

Memoirs are written by people with extraordinary achievements. This is the memoir of an ordinary person who got an extraordinary opportunity to study medicine behind the Iron Curtain – in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

The nine years I spent in the USSR from 1971 to 1980 went by quickly. The unique experiences I had shaped me into the man I am today. I returned to India and started practising medicine. It took a while to adapt to the practice of medicine in India, which was very different from that in the Soviet Union. I specialised in orthopaedics and got a job as a lecturer at the university teaching hospital in Kottayam, Kerala. Then it was marriage and kids. After a few years, I travelled to the UK for higher training in orthopaedics and settled there with my family.

Thirty-five years after leaving the USSR, something incredible happened. I was invited to a reunion of the classmates who had studied in Moscow. By this time, the USSR had been wiped from the map of the world. Moscow was now the capital of a different country – the Russian Federation. Memories that flooded back while walking the streets of Moscow gave me a chance to reflect and take stock of the fascinating bygone era.

History is written by historians. It is no secret that they tend to distort facts deliberately when it suits them. I can honestly say that what I have written in this book is what I have seen and experienced myself in the USSR and later on my return to the Russian Federation.

– Dr. Hari Kumar

A SHORT APPRECIATION BY JOANNA LUMLEY

Like Hari Kumar, I visited the USSR when I was very young. I was there five years before he went as a medical student; but the Moscow we saw behind the Iron Curtain was the same. It was vast, cold, struggling, under-supplied: but hidden beneath this bleak exterior was warmth and friendliness.

Like Dr Kumar, I too returned many years later and was stunned by the immense change that had taken place since the Soviet Union had been dissolved and a glittering new Russian Federation had risen from the disintegration.

That is where the similarities end: Dr Kumar went on to speak the language fluently, to study medicine there for eight years and to get under the skin of the people and their way of living. His wide experience as a doctor in India and in the UK has put him in a strong position to scrutinise varying politics and regimes, customs and prejudices, communism and capitalism. This fascinating book starts with vivid recollections of his student years, when to an Indian boy the USSR was as alien as Mars: and gradually reveals his understanding and acceptance of a new world, causing him to re-examine the doctrines we absorb depending on where we live. Always the same question comes to the fore: Was communism a better system to live under than capitalism? Like Dr Kumar, I asked people I met from Siberia to Moscow: was life better then? And the answers were the ones he heard as well: many people preferred the certainty of the old days of Soviet Socialism and felt that personal freedom was the price worth paying for security. The one unifying factor over the years was a sort of universal kindness: friendliness and generosity greeted him everywhere he stayed.

Dr Kumar writes with admirable dispassion on the endless dichotomy of the polarising systems of communism and capitalism, and that debate will go on long after we are all gone. Until then, A Different Degree puts us all under the microscope: we are left to draw our own conclusions, guided by his benevolent observations.

Chapter 1

THE TELEGRAM

I am going to tell you a story. It is a true story that started on a sunny day in June 1971 with the unexpected arrival of a telegram. The telegram was short and sweet, and it simply read ‘Selected for Peoples Friendship University, Moscow. Proceed to Delhi at the earliest to go to Moscow.’

It was the happiest day of my life.

I got my passport in a hurry. Dad and I travelled all the way from our little village, Sasthamkottah, in the state of Kerala in South India, by train to the capital of India, Delhi, up in the north.

The Soviet Embassy stamped the visa on my passport, and I arrived at the Safdarjung International Airport in Delhi, ready to board the Aeroflot (Soviet Airlines’ flag carrier) evening flight to Moscow.

I was a bundle of nerves as I checked in. The closest I had come to an aeroplane until that day was seeing one up in the skies. I had dreamt of travelling by plane someday, but until this trip to Delhi I had not travelled further than Quilon, our closest town in Kerala, on my own. I was only seventeen and I was waiting to board a plane to take me to a faraway, mysterious country – the Soviet Union. Leaving my family and friends behind was difficult enough, but going to do a professional course without knowing even a word of Russian was genuinely daunting. There were looks of surprise when I told my friends that I was going to the Soviet Union to study medicine. Some considered me fortunate to go to the land of Lenin, which they imagined as paradise on earth. Others were convinced it would be worse than living inside a freezer. I was told that if I survived I would be hounded and brainwashed by the KGB and would end up a die-hard communist. I had no clue who ‘the KGB’ was.

My dad once had a Russian friend, Mr Golomazov, a basketball coach, whom he had met years earlier in Delhi while serving as a member of the Indian parliament. A few years later, Dad visited Moscow as a part of the parliamentary delegation from India. There, he met up with Mr Golomazov and stayed with him in his apartment for two days. I asked Dad who the KGB was. He explained that it was the plain-clothes secret police of the Soviet Union who helped the regular police maintain law and order in the country. Dad assured me that Moscow was the safest place and Russians the most hospitable people and that I would have the time of my life there.

I went to check in at the Aeroflot counter at 5 p.m. After the security checks, I was directed to the waiting area. In the seventies, security checks at airports were much simpler and the number of people travelling by air was far fewer. I sat in the lounge, staring at the monitor without blinking, determined not to miss my flight details when they came up on the screen. I also kept listening attentively to the intercom for the announcement of my flight. Suddenly, I was overcome with a deep sense of sadness, as I had not said a proper goodbye to my father before checking in. I was unaware that once you go through the security gates, there is no going back.

The thought of my first flight and the new life that awaited me the following day made me nervous. Out of the blue came an announcement: “Passenger Mr Kumar, travelling to Moscow by Aeroflot flight number 567, kindly report to the security desk.”

It caught me by surprise. Could my first plane journey have ended even before taking off? The officer at the security desk looked at my passport carefully and put it aside. His deputy led me back to the check-in counter. My dad had persuaded the officials to let me out for a couple of minutes to say a proper goodbye.

Dad was a hard man with a big moustache and a soft heart. He gave me a great big hug and kiss and said, “Son, you are a young man now and capable of looking after yourself. Take care.” I saw tears gather in his eyes for the first time, and it moved me. My eyes filled up, despite my best efforts to keep a brave face, as I was led back into the waiting lounge, but I felt a lot happier inside.

Chapter 2

FLIGHT TO MOSCOW

My first plane journey was smoother than anticipated. When the air hostess distributed sweets, I took a handful, as a friend who had travelled by plane before warned me to keep chewing during the ascent and descent to avoid earache. My prayers were answered as I had been allocated a window seat. The aircraft moved up the runway, the engines roared, started slowly, warmed up and then, with a sprint, it took off. I was glued to the little window. As the plane gained altitude, Delhi beneath us looked beautiful, with millions of lights like fireflies. They gradually faded and disappeared into the distance below. I was tired and hungry after three hours of waiting at the airport. It was still difficult to believe that the next morning I would wake up in a foreign land. It was surreal.

My ambition was to study medicine, but even in my wildest dreams, I had never imagined that it would be abroad. My grandmother lived with us in the village. She was disabled and doubled up with arthritis and only walked indoors. She often had breathing difficulties and was on medication prescribed by the village Ayurvedic doctor. Grandma had blind faith in this doctor and had many tales to tell about him. He had made the paralysed walk and cured cancer. In Grandma’s mind, he was the reincarnation of Jesus.

When I first saw the doctor with my grandmother, I was very impressed. He was a gentle, soft-spoken and likeable person. His patience was limitless, and he was the greatest listener. He was never in a hurry, even when many patients waited impatiently outside to see him. He still had all the time in the world to listen to you. Grandmother used to say that merely speaking to him made her feel fifty per cent better. I used to pull her leg by saying, “Let us see him again tomorrow, and you will become one hundred per cent better.”

It was common knowledge that Ayurvedic medicine was not ideal for acute illnesses and was effective only if taken regularly over a long period. One Saturday morning, my grandmother’s health took a turn for the worse, and she was struggling to breathe. We had to summon the local Western medicine doctor (general practitioner) from the village. I was sent on my trusted mode of transport, the bicycle, to request a home visit.

The doctor was a tall, plump man with an imposing personality and a high-pitched voice. He reached us in ten minutes. He got out of his car, hung the stethoscope around his neck, picked up his briefcase and walked confidently into our home. He was ushered into my grandmother’s room. He placed the stethoscope on my grandmother’s chest and listened carefully. There was pin-drop silence in the room. We watched in awe and admiration.

After a brief pause, he turned around to my mother and said calmly, “Nothing to worry about. It is only a mild asthma attack. I will give her an injection, and she will get better soon.”

The doctor administered the injection, wrote out a prescription for tablets, collected the white envelope with the fee my mother had put ready and left. As soon as he left, my grandmother’s breathing started improving. I set off to the village pharmacy to buy the tablets. As I rode to the pharmacy, I thought to myself, What a nice, clever man! I want to be like him someday.

In the seat next to me on the plane was a pleasant, middle-aged, stocky Russian gentleman who introduced himself as Jim (Dmitry in Russian) and started a conversation. He spoke excellent English as he worked in the Russian Embassy in Delhi and knew India well. Jim mentioned the slogan famous in those days, ‘Hindi Russi Bhai Bhai’ (Indians and Russians are brothers). I was glad to be seated next to a brother during my maiden flight. He was a delightful conversationalist and kept on talking without pausing. It helped calm my nerves and keep my mind distracted. I only had to listen.

Drinks were served before meals. Jim had vodka, and I ordered a soft drink. I had never come across vodka before. I was expecting him to dilute it with soda or water, as with whisky, but he surprised me by gulping it neat, as a shot. Jim swore that vodka was the best drink under the sun. After his second shot, he began singing a tune from a Hindi movie starring his idol, the famous Indian film star Raj Kapoor. The opening words are, “Mera joota hai Japani, patloon Englishtani, sir pe lal topi Russi, Phir bi dil hai Hindustani” (“My shoes are Japanese, trousers are English, the red cap is Russian, but my heart is still Indian”).

A delicious dinner was served on the flight, and Jim nodded off after that. In the pouch in the seat in front there were a couple of magazines in Russian and an English newspaper. CD players to listen to music or DVDs to watch films had not been invented then. I picked up the Russian magazine. It was a strange language, with Latin alphabets mixed with some other odd and funny alphabets. I could not understand a word and just looked through the pictures of beautiful women in its pages. I struggled to sleep. The sound of the jet engines and the anticipation of a new life starting in a few hours kept me wide awake.