I have never really written about our foray into Russia except a stray mention here and there, primarily because there is so much to write about simply by virtue of living in Kenya. Thanks to the Creative Writing Course I took, I was forced to dig a little deeper into the recesses of my mind. So here's a glimpse of a rare Russian experience!
I was born in India and, of course, I was
brought up there. But I was not a one city one house person because my Dad was
in the Indian Army. So we moved around all over India, lived in different
cities across the length and breadth of India and changed so many houses that I
have lost count of them! My Dad often used to be away on training exercises and
my mother, my sister and I used to be alone many a time in huge, cavernous
colonial style bungalows that felt as if they were still haunted by long ago
British colonels who must have lived in them. But there was never any real
reason for fear as Army Cantonments continue to be some of the safest places to
live and grow up in, even today!
All this changed when I
got married and we moved to Russia. A new city was not a novel experience but a
new country certainly was. We were not stationed in the capital Moscow but in a
small city down South, very close to the Black Sea. The Russian people had overturned
a communist government just a few years ago and were still tentatively coming
to terms with, what was for them, a brand new idea – Capitalism.
My husband’s job
entailed that he had to travel across Southern Russia quite often with a few
trips to Moscow thrown in for good measure. I usually accompanied him for
longer trips and initially for the shorter ones too. Finally one day I declared,’
I am tired of travelling and I think I will be fine in this apartment. It is
just for a night anyway.’ He asked me,’ Are you sure? I really don’t mind if
you want to come along.’
But I was adamant in my
refusal and was confident that I had finally summoned up enough courage to
spend the night alone. And so he left for the airport early the next morning
and I was alone in a strange city for the very first time in my life. I could
not speak Russian at all since it is totally different from the languages I had
hitherto studied - English, Hindi, Marathi and French. The script was alien as
well since Russian is based on the Cyrillic script and English has a Latin
script.
I was not even
acquainted with a single neighbour. The post communism scenario in Russia was a
wary one. The Indians, unlike the Americans, did not face any hostility, but in
keeping with their earlier experiences of spies being everywhere, the Russians
preferred to keep a safe distance from us. So I might as well have been
marooned on a deserted island for all the good the neighbours could have done
me had I needed help or company! I was actually the only Indian girl in the
city. It was not a nice thought!
We were already deep in
the middle of a harsh winter and darkness fell very early and temperatures
dipped well below 0 degree centigrade even during the day. It began snowing
hard by early evening and the snowflakes that I had found so pretty up to then,
suddenly started looking ominous to me. Visibility was close to zero and I
could barely see outside the window. A queer half light filled the house just
as the sun was about to set and threw weird shadows around me. I shook myself
out of my reverie and said ’Enough! There is no need to get spooked!’ Just when
I had convinced myself that there was nothing to fear, the door bell rang!
Unfortunately,
apartment blocks in Russia do not have the same system as we have in India, as
far as the main door is concerned. In India we have a main wooden front door
and an iron grill door which gives a complete view of the landing outside your
house. Even if you open your wooden door, the iron one still protects you and
if you do not know the person outside, you can just conduct your entire
conversation through it or take the letter or courier as the case may be. In
the Russian apartment, things were very different. We had our own main door.
Then, together with our immediate neighbours, we had another door which was
common for the two flats. Then there was another door which was the common main
entrance for all the four flats on that floor and only then could you access
the landing and the stairs. The door bells for all the four flats were outside
this door. The government had built these flats and allotted them to the people
since there was no ownership of private property in communist Russia and I must
say they really wanted folks to feel safe!
So when my bell rang, I
wondered who it could be. I really did not know a soul here. I gathered the
bedraggled remains of my courage around me and opened the first door. Of course
no one was there in the tiny passage. Then I opened the second door and yet
again there was no one. Then I was at the common door to the landing and I
opened it a fraction of an inch and stuck my head out, both literally and
metaphorically! No one…
I was stumped.’ Who had
rung our bell? Was it someone who knew my husband was away for the night? Or
was it the little kids who lived in the complex playing a trick on me?’ I had
no idea but I was inclined to believe it was the latter. I slowly closed the
main common door and went back inside and began closing the second door as
well. There was a small curtained alcove to my right and out of the corner of
my eye, I caught sight of the curtain fluttering gently as if someone had been
hiding there and had hurriedly exited it. I panicked! I became convinced that
someone had been hiding in that small storage area and his accomplice had rung
the bell in order to lure me out so he could sneak into my open door and hide
in the house. I bolted straight into the house, somehow managed to lock my
personal main door, shot into the main bedroom and locked myself inside!( In
retrospect I believe I should have shot out of the house! But then where could
I have gone? The snow was nearly knee deep by then, I did not have any warm
clothes on, since all houses are centrally heated and this was before the cell
phone era so I could not even call anyone from the office for help!)
Thus began the longest
night of my life. My fear was palpable and I could feel its cold, sour,
metallic taste on my tongue. I was bathed in sweat and was sure I would never
see my husband or my parents, my father in law and my sister again. I did not
sleep all night long and just lay on the bed with a quaking heart, waiting for
whoever I thought had entered the house to break in into the bedroom and rob
and murder me, all for a few dollars!
Finally morning dawned
and wonder of wonders it had stopped snowing and a weak sun peeped out from
behind a few gray clouds. I realized I was still alive and gradually it dawned
on me that the curtain had fluttered only because of the draught that came in
when I opened the second door. Nothing and no one had been hiding there and it
had just been my mind playing tricks on me! I finally ventured out of the
bedroom and went around the entire house. To my great relief I was alone. But
to this day it does not take long for ‘intruder alerts’ to start ringing in my
head because that night is so firmly etched in my mind..
Who had rung the bell?
Well, it was the kids of course and there was no robber or murderer in the
house that night! I had gone into ‘intruder alert’ mode in vain!
Apartment complexes in Krasnodar looked similar to the ones in this picture
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