Book Box | A book club travels to Uzbekistan
From sheesh kebabs to Scheherazade, the Juhu book club celebrates its twentieth anniversary by exploring the stories of the Silk Route
Dear Reader,
What I remember most about our trip to Uzbekistan is not the romance of the landscape, the history that drips from every street, the succulent flavours of its sheesh kebabs, the warm crustiness of local Uzbek bread, the richness of its plov or even the deep red of its pomegranates at roadside fruit stalls.
What I remember most is the brilliance of the blues; the turquoise-topped mosques, madrasas and khanaqahs. Most of all, I remember my first sight of Registan Square — its centrepiece mosque with a blue dome so pure that paint makers must try in vain to duplicate that glorious shade.
I close my eyes and I am back on that first evening in Samarkand. It is twilight in Registan Square when the lights turn on. All at once the buildings gleam and glitter, their blues and greens lighting up like a rich tapestry of magical jewels. We sit on the broad marble steps, as evening turns into night, and the rich Prussian blues and greens of these 15th-century monuments change colours against a darkening sky.
Everywhere people are friendly. "India-Uzbek bhai bhai," a passerby said to us earlier, at a subway station in Tashkent, as we paused to admire murals of the poet Gafur Gulom, in sumptuous sky blue and grey.
On the bullet train from Tashkent to Samarkand, we fall into conversation with an Uzbek couple. He is fair and bearded and she is beautiful and wears a striking black and white jacket with gold buttons that we admire. The couple show us photographs of their trip last year to Bengaluru and Mysuru: in one, they are each wearing a welcome garland of flowers, in another, she wears a sari. Many Uzbek women smile shyly and ask if they could have a photograph with us. Hanifa, our mother-of-four guide in Samarkand, sends us on our way with the love story of the architect and Bibi Khanum, the chief wife of Timur.
And then there is Bekhruz — the bespectacled scholar who guides us through the mosques and madrasas of Bukhara. His commentary is entertaining and erudite. Turns out he has a major in history, a master's in archaeology and is completing his doctorate in Islamic art history. Little wonder that he peppers his speech with references to Edward Said, and offers us differing versions of history, topped off with his own interpretation!
Like the Silk Road travellers of yore, we travel in a company. Eleven Juhu book club readers in all, each adds to the trip in their own way. The Reader, who's read the Baburnama, drinks in the gardens and their fountains and exclaims- “Look this is where the Mughal gardens came from”. At breakfast the next day, as we pile our plates with baklava and gigantic melon slices, she tells us of Babur’s longing for the fruits of his motherland. I am reminded of reading about Babur’s love for Samarkand and the many battles he fought to keep this beautiful city. He failed, turning his steps to India, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The readers of The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia absorb the landscapes, the mountain ranges we have flown over in our flight from Mumbai to Tashkent, and the great plains we are driving on. “How inventive and how energetic these invaders must have been”, someone says. “Look, look, at how the landscape is changing to dusty prairie, this is the land the Mongols marched over, it’s almost as if you can see Genghis Khan coming, riding on his horse,” says another.
The Musician wakes early, walks to the Bibi Khanum mosque, sits on the stone plinth outside, and begins his riyaaz. We follow, listening to the deep purity of his ragas reverberating in the amazing acoustics, even as strangers walk by, each smiling at us.
The Shoppers bargain for deep blue ceramic teapots, silk scarves and burgundy red Bukhara carpets. “Here’s a music shop”, comes their message for the Musician, who then finds his stringed rubab and a slim tambourine-shaped drum made with camel skin.
And then there is the Reader who speaks Russian (learnt years ago to read Dostoevsky in the original). He’s been here before, seen the country under Russian occupation, and tells us about its history, its currency, its scripts.
From dinner in the book cafe in Tashkent, we travel to the Dome of the Booksellers in Bukhara. The moneylenders of those times, Jews, and then later Shroffs and Sarafs from India, sat outside these domes, exchanging money for the merchants that came in from different lands. Inside this dome were the booksellers, and those who sold mulberry paper made from silkworms!
At the Nadir Divanbegi madrasa in Bukhara, we see a mosaic with two simurgh birds. Our guide Bekhruz tells us the story of this mythical bird in The Conference of the Birds by the Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar.
Everywhere are such stories — the history of these lands, the larger-than-life legends — Timur, Ghenghis, Ulugh Beg. Doesn’t the glitter of Registan Square in Samarkand feel like a scene in the Arabian Nights, someone says. “That’s because it IS the Arabian Nights! The ruler of Samarkand was King Shah Zaman, brother of Shahryar, King of Persia!” exclaims another. As the story goes, both brothers are cuckolded by their wives and in revenge on womenkind, they marry a different woman every day and then kill her. This goes on till the beautiful storyteller Scheherazade steps in. Each night, she begins a new story, ending on a cliffhanger, leaving the King in such suspense, that he has to keep her alive for another night to hear the end of her story. This goes on for a thousand and one nights, by which time the King falls in love with Sheherazade and understands that all women are not as faithless as his first wife, also persuading his brother of the same.
We invent our own stories. Travelling on the road from Bukhara to Samarkand, we take turns to tell the story of a musician in Mumbai who travels to Bukhara, looking for inspiration. He finds a sidekick in a baby donkey who sticks with him, helping him out of sticky situations by shape-shifting into a magic carpet. The musician encounters invitations from djinn-like creatures to choose between fame and talent and to sell his soul to the devil, even as he flees from two KGB agents. It’s rambunctious and rip-roaring and we laugh a lot at the crazy twists and turns.
At night, we play dungeons and dragons, spinning stories set in an oasis; we are travellers in an inn by a purple palm tree, and we must fight past an attack by six-legged Bactrian camels.
Thus, seven days and six nights go by, with the sights and sounds of the silk route, each one of us on a personal pilgrimage, with days of drinking in art and architecture and nights of toasting the company with Uzbek wine, celebrating twenty years of being a book club. Till all at once, we find ourselves outside an airport terminal, bidding each other goodbye, to go our separate ways until the call of the book club draws us together again.
What about you dear Reader? Have you travelled recently as a group? Where to, and what were the best and worst parts? Do write in with your stories.
Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. She is also the founder of the Juhu Book Club. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. Write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com with reading-related questions and recommendations.
The views expressed are personal
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