Winter always leaves Mumbai in a hurry, so summer has the abruptness of a slap in the face. But in the city of Tashkent, spring blossoms before summer. Uzbek journalist Bagila Bukharbayeva, who spent a few years away from her hometown, rhapsodizes about the gentlest season of them all
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Bukhara is one of Uzbekistan's oldest and holiest cities |
Winter always leaves Mumbai in a hurry, so summer has the abruptness of a slap in the face. But in the city of Tashkent, spring blossoms before summer. Uzbek journalist Bagila Bukharbayeva, who spent a few years away from her hometown, rhapsodizes about the gentlest season of them allI missed four springs. Four times nature awoke without me seeing it, without me awakening together with it.u00a0u00a0
I'm used to the way spring arrives in Tashkent. The way it is in Tashkent. It's a spring that I recognise, the only spring I know.
I can see myself, a quiet child of seven, then a shy, inhibited teenager, then a restless and dreamy adolescent, looking out of our fifth-floor window and seeing that it's there. Everything seemed wrong in my life at the time my dictator father, my never having a good pair of shoes and a decent dress to go out in. But all that did not matter when spring arrived. Spring never failed me. It came with the same certain subtle smell in the air, certain feel of the breeze on the skin, certain brightness of the sun and transparency of the air, the chirping of sparrows and gurgling of pigeons on our window sills. It came
with that slightly bent apricot tree opposite the entrance to our section of our nine-storey typical Soviet apartment bloc every March the tree would get covered with pink flowers emanating a gentle fragrance; it came with that tall cherry tree under our window that would turn white like a bride, and next to it tall elm trees and sycamores, stretching high and wide their branches dotted with buds. It was a fascinating endeavor to watch the buds open into small gentle leaves that would grow with amazing confidence and speed, and one day the trees would be miraculously dressed again. I was fully with it, in the middle of that transformation. My lungs expanded, my head was empty of all worries, my body felt light. Just being there seemed enough and life was full of meaning.
I lived away for over four years. I missed four springs.
I guess I've returned in search of the meaning of life. I guess I knew it once... in a spring Tashkent.
Several centuries ago Tashkent was one of the jewels of the Great Silk Road. Trade, science, literature flourished.
It was a city of narrow unpaved streets winding between muddy walls and wooden gates and doors opening into shady court yards and mud-brick houses. Its life centered around mosques with towering minarets and bazaars. Its male citizens wore skull caps or turbans and cotton-padded robes. Its women wore veils, long dresses and jingling jewelry. Donkey-drawn carts creaked along the streets.
Over the past century it has almost ceased to exist for the rest of the world. It has begun to lose itself, its own identity, its face, its soul.
In the 18th century it was conquered by the Russians. Russification was followed by Bolshevization, then political purges, Communist collectivization, industrialization.
Then all of a sudden, in 1991 there came independence. But the country continues to be ruled by a former Communist boss. It means people still cannot pursue their dreams here... and they have been abandoning this city in large numbers.
Maybe this is why now that I am back here I can't get rid of a feeling that life is leaving this city that people I see on the streets are just empty shells without souls.
I take a train to Bukhara in an attempt to reconnect with my home country by going father back into history.
As always, Bukhara restores peace in me as I look at the turquoise mosaic on its mosques, minarets and madrasahs remains of another time, another life as I take in the reverent and peaceful air at its mausoleums with intricately painted ceilings, as I walk along its small streets lined with carved wooden doors and watch embroidered suzanis that are hanged out for sale fly in the wind an old craft that has survived the time.
Back in Tashkent, as I walk the city's dusty roads, past clogged gutters and drunkards digging in junk containers, I keep asking myself: is this place slowly disintegrating? Has it already been abandoned by a certain critical number of its best men and women whose ideas, aspirations and free thoughts were breathing life into its lungs?
I look for encouraging signs.
I see more unpicked rubbish, and stray cats on the streets seem to be thinner than before.
My only consolation is trees. They stand tall and unruffled, blooming again, ignoring the broken pavements below and desolation around.
In other places where I lived spring arrived differently. It had its own signs, smells, sounds and colors. My soul and my body refused to count that as spring. It felt like there was no more spring at all. It's hard to live without spring. It reminds us about something important that we always forget: that life is about endings and beginnings.
I timed my comeback to coincide with a time when spring is not yet in full swing in Tashkent, when it's young, gentle and so fragile everything around seems to be made of porcelain.
I fill my lungs to their full capacity. I try to absorb all smells and fragrances, I talk to every tree.
Slowly I begin to tune into the city's unhurried, quiet pace. I see weddings and funerals and new babies in our neighborhood. I see a neighbor planting flowers in the place of that apricot tree of my childhood which is no longer there.
I don't know any answers. Maybe there aren't any. I know only one thing: this city has a spring worth coming back for.
