So finally I was able to get the SIM card and got to my train. It wasn’t cold or warm as I expected. Bit hot, so I sort of like changed a few stuff and started eating some candies which I bought while doing some office work. Almost an hour, then I fell asleep for 2–3hours. I woke up thinking how tired am and went to wash me off. When I came back, there was this nanny who is trying to threaten her grandchild using me. Then that kid(which you see in the photo) started crying more 😁. I laughed inside me remembering how this nanny always use the strangers to threaten the kids to do something. I have seen in my hometown where they will be saying “If you don’t eat, I will give you to this poochandi(sort of a ghost man)”
Then I thought of just spending time with those people as the granny has some special lovable and funny humor. There was a guy who is like 30+ years old is travelling from urgench to Tashkent with his mom. He speaks good English and yes he is the translator :P
They started asking some usual question of where about and where I have been those details. I thought of showing my grandma photo to this nanny to show some connection of faces. And that moment lead to sharing more photos of family and thankfully I had my sister marriage photos which allow them to understand some culture in Tamil Nadu marriage ceremonies and especially muslim rituals we have it. They questioned about the amount you need to spend for marriage, how many numbers of people attend a marriage, how many buffaloes you cut and why my sister carry the apple in the groom stick she has :D And that kid’s mom start to show her marriage photo (she was beautiful though).
And the guy’s mom who is teasing her daughter whether she wants to marry me 😀. This granny always has this sort of funny comments to make. Also, they asked about whether I pray 5 times, how do I pray and also asking me to recite some surah*
This is the 3rd time it’s happening to me that people asking me to recite Sarah. Once in Aktau on the car and another one man at his home asking to recite Sarah Yasin. Thankfully I remembered on my head.
All the while this is happening the kid was trying to grab my beard and I kept looking at that granny. For some reasons, I felt so connected with the people here. Also, I hoped that I should learn the language as early as possible and so it’s easy to speak with people and be deeper conversation. They might have something to teach me.
They feel connected to Indians because Babur (the great emperor) is an Uzbek and most Muslim family should share common blood as well. I wasn’t sure about it and especially myself who comes from Tamil Nadu which is sort of Islam spread through trading activities between Arab and Indian traders. And Mongols(called as Mughals in India) doesn’t have a strong influence in south India. This is just my knowledge on this.
The English speaking guy wanted to host me on his in Tashkent (That’s nice of him :) ) and her mom wants to see me. Unfortunately, her mom could stay at Tashkent only for a week and back to Khawarazm and I cannot go there within a week. Mostly I guess would speed like 5–10 days in Samarkand and Bukhara before reaching to Tashkent!
So it was almost one hour left for the Bukhara station, I said a bye 👋 for now and packed my stuff.
