Dehradun, Dec. 23 -- During Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent visit to India, the two countries discussed strategic issues and signed major agreements. Yet something felt missing - the cultural, cinematic and artistic bridges that once defined the friendship between India and Russia. Though Putin mentioned Raj Kapoor while inaugurating RT news channel but it was merely lip service.
There was a time when the India-Russia relationship lived less in government files and more in people's hearts. That was an era when the language of friendship was not weapons and diplomacy, but Raj Kapoor's songs, Soviet circus acrobats, the pages of Sputnik magazine and the glow of the Russian ballet.
Russia did not feel like a "foreign land" then - i...