Of Bukhara’s Brides & Babar’s Belligerence : A Travel Tale to Timur’s Towns Jaihoon’s tryst at Uzbekistan, October 2014 - Part 1 No Intellectual Foreplay I undertook many journeys in the past with a sense of pre-knowledge. I had my own pre-manufactured notions over the nations and communities I’d visit. However, for this one, I thought it would be rather wiser to set out with zero expectations. Let Time and Space, I agreed, do their interplay without my intellectual foreplay. My near and dear ones asked me to bring back a thousand gems of prose and verses from this journey. And I set on the road, not sure if I could fulfill their hopes. Though we all enjoy to be loved in the company of our dear ones, there are moments when we yearn to be crowded within our fortified solitude. For, in the cold of crowd, the blanket of solitude is the most deserving. Delhi Enter Delhi, the Mughal-built capital of India. A one-day stop over before heading to the land of the founder of India’s gigantic yet glamorous empire. Delhi’s Delicious dhabas, India’s traditional answer to western fast food, continue to be in fashion attracting both the rich and poor, learned and illiterate. And add to this the mix of music and devotion, one ought to agree India is India, despite the all-consuming globalisation. Khwaja Nizamuddin It would be rude and crude to visit a ‘Kingdom’ without paying respect to the ‘Sultan’. Therefore, accompanied with a friend, I set out to the presence of Khwaja Nizamuddin, the beloved saint of Delhi, whose life made me realise that if we honour the Merciful Lord for few decades, HE will raise our dignity for infinite centuries. Humayun’s Tomb It maybe out of coincidence that the tomb of Delhi’s Spiritual Sultan faces the tomb of Humayun, one of its most powerful rulers till date. This superb structure was commissioned by his wife, Bega Begum, designed a Persian architect chosen by her. It would be interesting to contrast this structure with the Taj Mahal built by Shah Jahan, the great grandson of Humayun, in memory of his wife. These memorial tombs force us to conclude that Mughals took their love as serious as their throne. It is said that the grandeur of Humayun’s tomb set a precedent for future Mughal architecture in India. Little did I know while standing there that this tomb was inspired by the building of Gur-e-Amir, the tomb of Amir Timur, his great ancestor resting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan where I would be visiting in the next few days. Delhi has all the charm and glam of India’s wealth and filth. Beggars are common in the streets. Mothers and infant children approach car to car at traffic signals. One can see all their plight during the day and just when you feel like handing them a handful of rupees, they are seen boarding a four-wheel car to return to their master’s den. Organised begging is a wild vice to deal with in emerging India. Next day morn, a slight drizzle started as I began to wait for the taxi to the airport. I always believed Rain to be a good sign for my upcoming journeys. And this time too I was not disappointed in my belief. Flight The flight was filled with the chatter of Indian medical students who were studying in Uzbekistan. The students mainly hailed from the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Was it the academics or the economics, or the mix of both, which attracted them to the land of Timur? I left the question unanswered. Even as I tried to engage myself with various distractions, I ultimately realised it was not easy to stay out of touch from the ‘touchscreen dhikr’. Albeit, I saved as much battery life as I could for the upcoming few hours. The official greeting in Uzbek airways remains ‘Assalamu Alaikum’, though the ‘ground’ realities are entirely different, as visitors had noted in their travelogues. Occasional flight announcements interrupted the sleepy eyes. Uzbek soil, I have heard, is royally rich for both agricultural, political and intellectual cultivation. While cotton and other crops continue to enrich their economics, it has also supplied the world with some of the finest statesmen and scholars too. Amir Timur, Ulugbek and Babar shone on the power thrones. Bahauddin Naqshabandi reigned and rained in the believer’s hearts and Imam Bukhari on their minds. It is impossible to enjoy the Uzbek breeze minus the fragrance of Imam Bukhari, the intellectual hero of Islamic world known for his unforgiving scrupulousness in recording the sayings of Prophet, known as Hadith. It is no poetic state for Lovers to lose sleep pondering on their Beloved. ‘I was with Imam Bukhari at his home. He woke up from sleep at least 18 times and each time wrote down something he remembered about Hadith’. For, when it comes to all things love, true lovers demand the highest form of accuracy. They content at nothing short of the truth. Imam Bukhari belonged to a wealthy family. He spent much wealth in seeking knowledge and when exhausted, he became so poor that he had to even eat grass once during his journeys. This ‘yellow-haired’ scholar (a traditional Arab reference to European-descent races) is credited with not only compiling the most revered book in Islamic world after Quran, but also producing some of the brilliant minds in Hadith literature such as Imam Muslim, Tirmidhi and anNasaai. Today’s Islamic world has few such self-less scholars but plenty of outspoken orators. And they mostly confuse between scholarship and eloquence. Orators are not same as scholars. Kerala Muslims are apparently in the forefront of this misunderstanding. The thoughts of Bukhara’s scholar was interrupted by the ice-crowned mounts seen from Uzbek skies. The land of Timur and Babar were soon to arrive. Chocolate-like mountain ranges with vanilla toppings. I was sure Uzbekistan would give me sweet memories as I stepped out of the flight passing by the assuring smile of the Uzbek flight attendant (to be continued)
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 03:44:01 +0000
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