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Awara
in China
The common people in
China might know little about India, but hum a few notes from
Raj Kapoor's eternal favourite "Awara", then there
is an instant rapport, discovers TWF correspondent Atish Ghosh
in Beijing.
I am speeding down Changan Jie or the Avenue of Eternal Peace
towards the Tiananmen Square in a taxi. A random conversation
with the driver:
Taxi-driver: Where do you come from?
A: You guess.
An Arab country?
No.
The US?
No!
Africa?
No! I am from your neighbouring country…to the southwest…
Thailand…Burma…Nepal….Bangladesh? Oh…Pakistan!
No! The big one beside it.
India! 'Awalagoo…ooo…'(singing)
That's our friendly taxi driver's version of the title track
from Raj Kapoor's 1951 film Awara, popularly known as Liulanzhe
in Chinese. A conversation like this has taken place on myriad
occasions during my last few years in Beijing. Now it's a
little game that I keep playing with a lot of people. But
recently, I have noticed a growing number among the Chinese
"laobaixing" (common-folk) who take no time in rightly
guessing while I quiz where I come from.
With three out of the last five decades bogged down with
strenuous diplomatic relations and very little cultural exchange,
it's only natural that the plebeians of India and China would
know so little about one another. So it would be extremely
unfair to take offence of a Beijing taxi driver's minimal
ignorance about the big neighbour. I myself had very little
knowledge of the "real" China despite specialising
in Chinese Language and Cultural Studies till I actually set
foot in the country and started living in Beijing. Much earlier,
while still in school, my knowledge of China was even more
limited. Back then , the only fact that I could vouch for
as knowing about China was that the "Hero" brand
fountain pen I used to write my papers with in the exams happened
to come from there and that the people there ate with chopsticks.
It's sad that two of the most ancient civilisations, sharing
such a massive international border, being the two most populous
nations in the world today, and in our present age of information
technology, "Post-Modernism", globalisation, etc.
etc., there has had been so little interaction between the
two people. However, with relations improving again recently,
there is ample scope for optimism that the gaps would be narrowing.
A little more than two decades ago, Suitable Boy Vikram Seth
used to be a student in Nanjing University in China. He had
made an exciting journey through Xinjiang, Tibet and Nepal
on his way back to India, and recorded his experiences in
a magnificent travelogue titled, From Heaven Lake which later
received the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award. In this book,
Seth points out how Raj Kapoor (christened Lazi by the Chinese)
had come to be reverred as a cultural icon of India. "It
comes as a shock to me sometimes," he writes, "to
hear it (the Awara theme song) hummed on the streets of Nanjing….No
sooner have I begun (singing) than I find that the musicians
have struck up the accompaniment behind me: they know the
tune better than I do."
It's absolutely fascinating to find even today what a profound
impression the character of the little vagabond tramp epitomised
by Raj Kapoor has had on certain sections of the Chinese population.
One can still break ice by singing a few lines like "Awara
Hoon" (i.e. Awalagoo…ooo…)! It's quite enchanting
to find people joining the refrain.
Personally I find it quite a mystery as to how Awara or for
that matter, other films from the 50s like Do Bigha Zameen
(Liangmudi) and Caravan (Dapengche) much later, entered China.
Perhaps, they made their first journey across the Himalayas
into China in the heyday of the "Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai"
(India-China bonhomie) during the crest of Nehruvian-Socialism
of the 50s. But again, a lot of people here have told me that
they remember these films making their appearance in China
much later. So it could very well be that they came in through
the erstwhile Soviet channels of cultural exchange where Raj
Kapoor is very popular too.
Whatever be the case, the Chinese have been able to identify
themselves with these films and also some others from the
more recent past like Noorie or Mr India. Especially, the
vagabond protagonist of Awara is a household name. His character
could well be described as being somewhere between Chaplin's
tramp and the Chinese communist hero Lei Feng, in its Indian
avatar, of course! Most of the Chinese I have met seem to
readily connect the tramp with India. At times, I am asked
if I could sing and dance. On other occasions, I find myself
nodding in affirmation when people tell me how they find Indian
women "very beautiful".
To be honest, earlier I was hardly a connoisseur of Bollywood
films. I considered them to be melodramatic and full of unnecessary
songs and dances. Awara was no different and I attributed
to it all the regular criticisms against the Bollywood genre
of films. That is, before coming to China. But after interacting
with the China's common people, I had to watch it again. I
realized, how the film, in fact, elements of the Bollywood
genre itself, with its melodrama and more particularly, the
song and dance sequences, can lend heart to a film if used
in the right doses. They have a certain quality of universal
appeal that somehow manages to transcend immediate geographical
and cultural boundaries in bringing people closer.
Well, living in China has certainly taught me to appreciate
Bollywood more. Even though the other day my professor put
things in a cut and dried manner as to why the Bollywood formula…"rich
girl loves poor man" was so popular in China. "Before,
being poor was good", he observed, but now, "being
rich is good"! And naturally, the Chinese audiences these
days can relate to quintessential Hollywood more than quintessential
Bollywood.
But as far as I am concerned, Lazi- the tramp, has indeed
brought me closer to the Chinese people.
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