Operation Moscow

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I pursuaded Avi to write about his Moscow Days in 1972. Here it is in his own words:

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The scene is set in late 1972. I was in seventh heaven. Not just because the airplane was at a height of 33000 ft. but all my dreams had come true. I was among the select group to be trained abroad and I was actually heading for Moscow. I was also the proud father of a cute baby, 4 months old. Everything seemed to be going right for me.

Moscow’s first sight was not exactly heartwarming. Everything looked dark and gloomy with white sheet of snow covering the landscape. Two formidable looking militia men were looking ferociously towards all the passengers arriving at the terminal. It was our first exposure to zero degree C and all that we had on us, were thin overcoats borrowed from relatives. So, after checking in the huge and impressive Ukraina hotel with 1000 rooms, (my room no. being 945) we were herded to the Indian Embassy. The Embassy used to loan heavy overcoats to ill-prepared Indian visitors. So what if these overcoats were of second world-war vintage and each weighed 10kg, with a matching cap? The outfits made us look like soldiers fighting in trenches but we were at least warm.

The first week was great fun, although we were perplexed that the sun rose at 10.00 a.m., did a quarter circle on the horizon and disappeared at 4.00 p.m. and it was dark after that. For the first time we were seeing sunset in what we regarded as the East and it upset all our notions.

Our hosts took us around Moscow, showed Red Square and the Basilica, hosted dinners to welcome us, explained the great tradition of doing ‘bottoms up’ with vodka glasses, which we quickly learnt to avoid.

We also discovered the Moscow Metro and were amazed at the efficient train service in the deep bowels of the earth. We sometimes had to take 3 escalators to reach the requisite station. And the journey used to cost only 5 kopeks (today it is 22 Roubles). We were also explained that the prices of everything were unchanged for the past 10 years. The bread was also 5 kopeks. Of course we were impressed and like our hosts, pretended not to see long and patient lines waiting outside stores to buy ordinary things like washing powder and shoes and toothpaste.

The famous shop GUM in the Red Square and the children’s toy store Detskii Mir become our favorite haunts. Oh, everything was so cheap, (when available) and Moscow was so safe. Most of us were converted to Communism in those first few days and started calling each other ‘Comrades’.

After the honeymoon of first few days, we started our training at the Institute of Advanced Mathematics on the Big Electronic Computing System. The first day was very good and we were in a very happy frame of mind, to be learning about advanced and big computer from the designers themselves.

On second day in the class, I started feeling pain in the stomach. After sometime it became so unbearable that instead of sitting on the front bench, I shifted to last bench and tried to lie down clutching my stomach. All my colleagues were concerned. Some of them also tried to diagnose my ailment as ‘complixityphobia’ explaining that I must be having this pain as the subject being taught was too complex for me. Among all these heartless colleagues, the Russians appeared to be really concerned and called for doctor who immediately ordered me to be taken to the hospital.

At the hospital, things started moving with rapid speed and before I realized it, I was shifted to the operation theater. Our interpreter just told me that I was to undergo a small operation. My condition was really so bad that I could not even protest.

I came to consciousness after a few hours to find our interpreter in attendance. He explained to me, with great drama, that my life was saved by the Russian doctors. They had to perform an emergency appendectomy and when they opened my stomach, found that the appendix had already burst open. They had to clean everything which took 3 hours but now everything is O.K. Since the stomach was infected, they did not stitch the wound but kept it open with a tube jutting out. The wound will dry itself and then they will take the tube out. All this will take maximum one week and then I will be hale and hearty and back to the hotel and the training.

This was the beginning of my looong stay in the hospital. I learnt that I was in the famous Botkina hospital. Its claim to fame was that Lenin was operated in this hospital for removal of a bullet which was in his chest for a few years. Since I was not as famous as Lenin, my bed was in the corridor. Luckily the doctor did not like his foreign patient being given an inferior bed and so I was shifted to a room where another dozen or so patients were accommodated.

Although I had studied rudimentary Russian in the training school, it did not prepare me for a stay in hospital. So I had some major fundamental difficulties to communicate with doctors and nurses. Since I was on my back for almost 9 days, I was dependent on the nurses and ward boys for all basic functions. The first challenge was how to ask for a urine pot. The sign language might have been interpreted as obscene. I asked one of the patients the name of the urine pot and I was told it is ‘utka’ which, my Russian-English dictionary told me, was a ‘duck’. Afterwards, someone interpreted that the urine pot looks like a duck. Then another basic function required the use of toilet paper and I knew the Russian for paper which is ‘bumaga’, to which I had to attach the word ‘tualet’ to covey that I did not want a newspaper or writing-paper but the other sort of paper.

On the third day I was visited by another Indian patient, who also had undergone appendectomy at Botkina. He was an author employed by Russian publication to translate Russian books in Indian languages. He was quite fluent with Russian language and was very helpful to me. But in a way, his being on his own feet within three days of an appendectomy was not at all helpful to my morale. His was the normal operation and he left the hospital in 5 days and I was still looking at the ceiling on 8th day.

I started having dark misgivings about the Russian intentions. Did they find out that I had attended some meetings of a strong Hindu Fundamentalist organization while in school? Or did the hear me arguing against communism in the college canteen? Was I being detained to have some brainwashing done through intravenous tubes which were permanently attached to me? Or are they using me as a blood bank as they were taking out blood from my arms every few hours under the pretext of a blood test? My cheerful colleagues who were forced to visit me by rotation every evening did nothing to alleviate my fears and had lots of PJs with me as the focus.

One of the days, I got high fever which made the doctors extremely worried. So apart from the normal medicines and injections, they also used some unique Russian remedies. One was sticking glass cups to my chest. The glass cups were heated on a candle and when sufficiently hot to expel all air, they were pressed on to my chest. The two dozen cups attached to my chest made me look like an inverted chandelier. I was told that this was to decongest my chest. Another treatment was attaching a newspaper, soaked in some sort of oil to my chest and back. The oil gave a burning sensation and was again supposed to decongest my chest.

I was happy that these treatments were successful and soon the fever left me. But I was still in the supine position for 9 days when they finally decided that I can sit, stand and maybe walk too. I had lost all my sense of balance and literally had to learn walking like a baby. I assumed that now I will be released any day. But I had to wait for another 9 days before doctors were satisfied that the wound had completely healed and there was no chance of re-infection.

After reaching the hotel, another drama unfolded. Remember, those were the days when long-distance telephones had to be booked and the call would ‘mature’ only after a few hours. You had to shout on the phone to make yourself heard and mostly the other party was able hear your shouting more clearly than your voice through the telephone line. So I had forbidden my colleagues from informing the news of my operation to India. Despite being a bunch of rogues, they kept their promise.

A Russian officer, who was not bound by the oath of silence, visited my boss in India, who was also my wife’s boss, and told him about me. My boss called my wife and asked about my health and she knew nothing about the operation and now that she knew, she could do nothing but start crying in the office to the utter embarrassment to my boss and the Russian visitor.

When I came to know about it, I had to reassure her. Many attempts were made to book the call and wait for its maturing. Finally we could get through and I shouted the good news that I am still OK despite a four inch cut on the right side of my belly and spending 18 days in the hospital for a mere appendectomy. ‘And no, I did not spend this time in the hospital because I fell in love with a Russian nurse as some of my colleague may make you believe’.

During any medical exam, nowadays, I have to explain to the doctors that this big scar is not a wound inflected on me by some rival gang but by a friendly helpful Russian doctor who actually saved my life.

The life after the operation was quite dull, dreary and miserable. The days became shorter and colder, the training got harder and it felt as though the overcoat had become heavier because of my weakened condition. The food too tasted blander.

I desperately wanted to go back home and see my wife and my small little baby. The letters used to take at least two weeks to reach so the news was always one month old. To phone was out of question, both technically and financially. I literally started counting the days to go back. The memory of my last days in Moscow is that of endlessly waiting for the training to get over. I just filled the time by making umpteen trips to Detski Mir to buy toys for the baby and any affordable and useless stuff for Charu.

The happiest moment was to see her at the airport in a brand new sari which she had embroidered herself in these 3 months (no, not to ward off suitors, like Penelope had to do while waiting for Odysseus; but just to welcome me).

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