Love in Tokyo and Seiko watches once dominated the desi imagination
‘Mera joota hai Japani, Yeh patloon Inglistani, Sar pe lal topi Russi, Phir bhi dil hai Hindustani…’
Who doesn’t love this 1955 ditty from the film Shree 420? The Chaplinesque vagabond Raj Kapoor skipping along the dusty roads of Real India, lip syncing to the rollicking innocence of Mukesh’s gentle voice, Shankar Jaikishen’s music and Shailendra’s lyrics, the song became an anthem. It captured India’s post-Independence heart and immortalised Kapoor as a tragi-comic symbol of our wide-eyed infant republic.
Back then in the Nehruvian 1950s, Japan, Britain and Russia were aspirational role models for a young nation-in-the-making. Memories of the British Empire had still not faded and Communist Russia was Nehru’s most Read More
