The Pachchan effect

My introduction to the late Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz was on a flight from Mumbai to Cairo, en route to Tel Aviv, back in 1990. The journey began in Chennai, followed by a train journey to Mumbai, an Egypt Air flight from Cairo, then on to a tiny prop plane of Air Sinai belonging to Egypt Air and staffed by the most hostile airline crew I have ever come across. It was just 20 minutes from Cairo to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport.

With no direct flights between India and Israel at that point, it was an arduous journey. The only reading material on Egypt Air was a rather grotty edition of Egypt Times. Mahfouz was well known by then, having become the first Arab writer to win the Nobel for literature in ‘88. My eyes fell on a column bearing his photograph with the intriguing headline: ‘Why Pachchan is good for the youth’. In it the author compared ‘Pachchan’, apparently the hero of Egypt’s younger generation, and Raj Kapoor, who was evidently adored by the older folk. I must have read the column three times before it sunk in. ‘Pachchan’ was the local way of spelling Amitabh Bachchan!

My visit to a souk in Jerusalem full of Arab and Sephardic (Jews originally from Arab countries) shops was another eye-opener. Street stalls and shop shelves were piled high with Hindi movie videos. Once my nationality was known, I was mobbed. One shopkeeper even grabbed me and sobbed, “Raj Kapoor, Nargis dead; very sad, very sad.”

The return journey entailed a 12-hour stopover at Cairo. On the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel, the cabbie wanted to know where I was from. My driver then said he always refused to take money from an Indian. “I keep fighting with my son. He says ‘Pachchan’ is the best, I tell him no one can beat Raj Kapoor,” he explained. Well, thanks to them, I saved a few precious dollars!