He promised me the world and I bartered my mole!

My life is a journey and I met this realisation somewhere in the middle of a finger pointing fight with Sumeet, last year on Valentine’s Day. I was getting tired of his capability to never give me a surprise. Somehow, out of the million other fights between us... my words managed to enter the fuzzy cleavages of his ears this once as he planned a surprise that shook the last bone in me.

When I told my dad I’m off to Uzbekistan, he took an hour to put breaks to his over speeding heart. Not in his life had he heard of another ‘istan’ besides the two obvious ones... blame it on America. Honestly, I didn’t know about Uzbekistan myself until then, but then I didn’t know people made a living out of making holes in donuts either, until my encounter with Dorianne Laux tonight. So don’t you judge your lack of knowledge in comparison to my absolute absence of it. Anyway, much as I told dad all ‘istans’ were not the same, he seemed less convinced than inconvenienced to be asked to alter his comforting prejudices.

Uzbekistan is an enchanting oddness, however... a genie in deception, a jar of pickle hidden deep inside the closet, long forgotten. The unbundling of former USSR in 1991 revealed five embryonic states of what makes for Central Asia today-Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Amongst these, Uzbekistan-the seductress that rests enticingly on the ruins of the ancient silk route, is an over-qualified hostess with seldom suitors.

A piecemeal knowledge of Russian can take you a long distance there. Being an Indian is even better. The stubby good looking men with their loosely prefixed Mongolian features and the flirtatious women, cheating on men and traffic signals alike... are the most devoted lot fanning the Indian film Industry.

Walking on Tashkent’s vast, clean lanes I was stopped every five minutes by a friendly passerby wanting to sing Bollywood songs to me.... It was overwhelming to enter an Uzbeki pub.

On my first evening with Sumeet’s gorgeous uncle and aunt who are an Indian Diplomat couple living in Tashkent, I was taken to dine at the ‘NUR’ restaurant. I suddenly began to feel like a dessert on the menu... everyone wanted a piece of me on their table. The moment we entered the restaurant, the DJ played a popular Bollywood song in my honour and soon I was being dragged to the dance floor. Women as much as the men wanted to do gidda (a Punjabi dance form) with me. A girl called ‘Gauri’ with a voice so sweet, I could get diabetic on it... sang old Hindi songs to me without having known a word of Hindi, while a man called Javli Sultanov swore to stake the world in return for the mole on my nose. I could have given it to him for free, I hate it anyway... 

The intemperate heat of summer-time in Uzbekistan has added profound layers of warmth in its people’s hearts. And often as they smile feverishly, their 14 carat gold laden teeth tell stories of a society so conscious of status symbols. Teeth of gold are totems of wealth that sit inside almost 60 percent of Uzbeki jaws. 

However as deep are their tooth cavities so are the final destinations of their trouser pockets. Swollen with Uzbeki currency notes (soum) that are so depreciated that one dollar could fetch you 1650 of them notes, the Uzbeks have pockets and purses so large, they occupy an extra seat in all public places ‘a table for two plus one pocket please!’

Most unique element of Uzbekistan, and I can only speak for Tashkent actually (never got time to get out of there to visit other beauties like Samarkand and Bukhara,) is that every single vehicle ambling the streets... privately owned or public property, is a taxi. On my second day in Tashkent when I was waiting for a cab to take me to the famous ‘Chorsu Bazaar,’ and making my hand rehearse ballet in the air, a car stopped and the man in the driver’s seat explained to me ‘every car in this country can be stopped and you can pay the regular charges for being dropped to your requested spot.’ I simply loved this brilliant scheme as much as I loved everything else about the country.

I couldn’t escape local Uzbeks pinning me down with Hindi songs even in the crowded Chorsu Bazaar. Much as I love standing out in a crowd, I was increasingly getting tired this time, just when a boy stared at me and we communicated without the benefit of a common language. Of all he spoke, I understood nothing but one word ‘Hrithik Roshan.’ 

Bollywood sure has taken India places... who would fancy concealed in colours of Korean salads, famous Uzbeki dry-fruits, cherries and brandishes of cheap but exquisite Uzbeki artefacts... a silent admirer of India’s response to Batman. 

Coming back to artefacts, Uzbeki chandeliers, wood carved furniture and carpets are a delicacy that can be relished only in Uzbekistan itself, unless you are ready to pay extra baggage price for it... Uzbek air allows 20 kilos luggage alas! I hence gave the flying carpets and the hypnotic chandeliers a pass as my eyes got fixated on a group of oldies taking a good laugh at life.

They are the lucky charms that apparently bring prosperity... so many of them ganging up on the Uzbek economy and still doing no good for it... I was beginning to question their credentials... however, for the sake of ‘tourists must buy souvenirs’ legacy, I adopted one of them. Soon I saw a zombie pumpkin that let some odd guy paint all over it without realising it’s a vegetable, not a canvass. 

Anyway, I liked its attitude so I bought it... soon enough I saw many more such stoned- to-death pumpkins... they amount to some sort of art in Uzbekistan and drunk or not drunk... I just think they are gorgeous and a must buy!

Now getting drunk is an act unaccomplished by me in there... On my second evening in Tashkent, Muasi (aunt), Mausaji (uncle) took me to an all-Indian get together where I was offered the Uzbek wine. If you want to die on a glass of slightly mauve with bursts of maroon sugar syrup, then let me know... I’ll get you some Uzbek wine. In retrospect I think that country is a land of some extremes... extremely sweet wine, extremely brackish cheese (yummmm!), extremely creative calligraphy 

(they look for the messages of Allah in all his creations. So if you draw a human ‘eye’ and try reading it... it would mean ‘subhan Allah!’ in Urdu,) but most notably there is a discomforting extreme of  ‘artificially generated bliss.'

Since 1991 Uzbekistan has been run by one President and one party... every other voice is comfortably numbed. Education and media are alike, state run products marinated with power politics. While schools have no names but numbering, so you could be in school 1 or 2 or so on...  the media is homogenised with a silence that quells rebellion. Each morning I woke up to read the national newspaper splattered with stories of glory of the government. It’s a nation whose people have not the privilege to know what is ‘bad,’ what goes ‘wrong,’ hence, they know not of such bitter sensations. That’s what I call ‘generated bliss.’

One could point fingers at such governance, it’s the simplest job to do... besides, you don’t need to apply and go through the selection process for it. I’d however like us to visit Uzbekistan and experience the sense of absolute security a woman can feel even as she walks the barren streets at 3:00 am, oscillates in the oft crime-free air, bathes in historical grandeur and meets the almost perfect bunch of Allah’s own children... before making our paralysing prognosis.

In my three days in Uzbekistan I could not alight the highlands... but the lowlands were a journey of the self... I promised myself then, never to judge Sumeet’s misgivings for they could often be just as rewarding.