Padmini and her sister Ragini are back from Russia where they stayed for just over a month. They returned to Madras some weeks ago and have been meeting journalists and posing for photographers in between their work at the studios where they reported for duty almost straight from the airport!
This writer was perhaps very much far behind in the queue of persons wanting to talk to the sisters about their experiences in Russia, but when his turn did come last week he found that their recollections and impressions were as fresh and buoyant as when they landed in Bombay. First indication that memories of the Russian visit were still having a powerful hold on them came when I found them talking in a strange language which their elder sister, Lalitha (who has retired from the arena of the film world after her marriage) later told me was Russian.  |
| From left: Ragini, officer holding grand prix won by Raj kapoor for Jagte Raho at Karlovy vary film festival, padmini, Raj kapoor, mrs pritviraj kapoor and Prem Dhawan on extreme right |
“So you have picked up Russian”, I remarked. “Oh yes”, said Ragini. “ I can speak Russian very well. I can give you a demonstration if you want”. And a torrent of words poured forth from her lips which Padmini tried to translate into english for my benefit. “I suppose you are entertaining your studio friends with your Russian”, I said to Padmini. “No”, she replied, “if I speak Russian, they cannot reply to me in Russian and so I practise my Russian with Ragi”.
“Going to Russia, a foreign country, didn’t you feel strange?” I asked. “On the contrary”, Padmini said, “we felt as though we were visiting some distant relatives of ours. We felt very much at home and we were overwhelmed by the hospitality and kindness of the people”.
Typical of the warmth of affection shown to them was that of the famous Uzbek dancer Tamara Khanum who took them to her house, fed them with food which they relished and which they found nearer to the diet they were accustomed to in India, and taught them some pieces of Uzbek dance. She presented them with Uzbek dancing costume, the materials for which she specially secured from Tashkent. They became so much attached to each other, that the Indian visitors called the soviet dancer, “Russian Mummy”. Actually in our country Tamara Khanum would be called a grandmother for she was 55 and still at the height of her career. She, however, looks so young, said Padmini, that no one would suspect her real age.
Most memorable experience of the sisters was the entertainment they provided to the hundreds of thousands who had gathered in the vast Moscow Stadium for the youth festival. On the opening day, Padmini and Ragini along with other indian delegates marched in procession for three miles holding aloft India’s tri-colour when the youth of the various countries participating in the festival paraded before the huge audience which included Russia’s top leaders. On the second day they were asked to give a performance for 15 minutes. They had gone ill-prepared. They could dance only two items and the tape-recorders providing the music for these which they had taken with them were found unsuitable. So they sought the help of the American Embassy and recorded the music in an other tape. The items they danced were Nadanam Aadinar in Bharatanatyam style and folk dance which represented a harvest scene. Sometimes they give two or three performances in one evening to different audiences and it was seldom that they were able to keep to the 15 minute time limit. For the Russians were irrepressible and they called for encore so often and there was continuous applause for many minutes that the dancers could but but oblige them with a repetition of their dance.
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| Padmini |
The two sisters won first prize for the classical and folk dances in a competition organised by the youth festival committee. They did not know the result until four days after the performance and they were in jitters all the time. And it was a Korean dancer who bruke the glad tidings to them in return for which they taught her something of Bharatanatya technique. The official announcement of the result came sometime later, but unfortunately they missed being present at the presentation ceremony because they lost the letter informing them about it.
All the first prize winners, of whom there were 16, were given a reception at the hall of columns were they also entertained the Muscovites. Their performance were televised and the newspaper carried their pictures, so much so that the Russians easily recognized them in the streets and waved to them, shouting “Bravo”. They made them dance and sing in the streets and during festival time, in every street corner there was a stage, said Ragini. After every performance they were invited to walk through the crowd, so that they could see the visitors from India better and they showered flowers on them, crying “Pashli” (come).
“The Russians like Indians so much that when I went shopping, I was deluged with presents because I came from the land of Nehru and Raj Kapoor”,Ragini said. One evening as Ragini emerged from a Puppet theatre she found herself shivering from cold since she had not taken the precaution to protect herself. Seeing her plight, A Russian woman took off her overcoat and threw it over Ragini and before the latter could realise what was happening she was snowed under by more overcoats which had been offered to make her comfortable. A taxi was hastily summoned and the sisters were safely taken to their hotel.
On another occasion, the sisters went to Mosfilm studio, where the director Alaxandrov was filming a fashion show with French girls. When he saw Padmini and Ragini in their beautiful saries, he was so impressed that he desired them to come on the set and be included in the film. That was how they came to know about this famous director who has signed them to act in a Russian film, whose provisional title is ‘Family of Nations’. The film, Padmini said, would be based on the activities of the Youth Festival and they would have to dance as they did at the festival. They propose to leave for Russia in march and they might stay there for two months. This time they would visit the Asian republics of the Soviet Union from where they had received a number of invitations.
The sisters were not happy about the food and practically most of the time they lived on bread and curds. They found chillies, an essential part of their diet at home, scarce in Moscow. When they did manage to secure one or two, they kept on nibbling at it in order to make it last as long as possible.
The Russian journalists were interested in them and their art and held an exclusive reception for them at which they plied them with questions. Ragini answered most of them and demonstrated the many features of Bharatanatyam. After the 40 minute press conference, the journalists put their pencil and notebooks down and began to sing and dance in which Padmini and Ragini participated.
“One thing about us which mystified the Russians”, said Padmini, “ was the tilak mark on our forehead, every Russians whom we met invariably asked us why we used the tilak and what it signified”. “In fact the questions were so numerous”, Ragini intervened, “that we wrote the answers in a piece of paper and displayed it to the curious”.
“What is your impressions during your visit”? I asked Padmini. She said the impression she carried most in her mind was the extraordinary work of the Russian woman, either in the field or in the factory. She even felt that the women worked better than the men. With them work came first, pleasure afterwards.
“Is there any concrete result of your visit?” I asked, “Well” she said, “ I have stopped working on sundays ever since I returned from Russia and that is perhaps one result”.
When I turned to Ragini and asked for her impressions, she bought a notebook in which she had written some notes and began to tell me about the Communist philosophy. “you know, what I would like to do”. She said after sometime, “ I would like to to Russia and settle down there”.
“That is, if Mummy doesn’t object”, I put in.
“Of course, there's the rub”, she agreed.
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