How a trip to Uzbekistan made us appreciate the much-vilified Babur

First things first. For the traveller or the tourist, Uzbekistan offers great value for money. A little bit of planning, and the two-and-a-half-hour flight from and to Delhi costs less than a trip to Bengaluru. Then there’s the easy visa process and stunning boutique hotels at much cheaper rates than India. The Yandex App is available across cities and works as well or better than Uber and Ola in India.

But beyond the necessary pecuniary arithmetic and convenience, there is an incalculable warmth across the country. A large part of it is, of course, a result of the popularity of the Hindi film industry. The moment you are recognised as Indian, there are excited cries of “Shah Rukh Khan! Raj Kapoor! Aishwarya Rai!”. At popular tourist sites, Uzbekistan citizens visiting from the hinterland will insist on taking a photograph with you. For a moment, there is something more concrete than a selfie and Instagram post to feed the fickle narcissism that consumes us all. The connections, though, are not merely skin deep. Across Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara there echoes of familiarity, of the bonds that were, and the things India could have been.

Kosmonavtlar subway Station of the Tashkent Metro. (Credit: Trisha Chandran)

Tashkent is a fraction of Delhi’s size – in terms of the area and the population. It is far cleaner, the traffic is both faster and more civilised (pedestrians actually have right of way). The city’s architecture, though, is all-too-familiar: A mix of socialist modernism that Soviet-inspired Nehruvian India too indulged in, and the flashy, more recent buildings that reek of a desire to fit in with the West and global capitalist modernity. There are impressive buildings at the central Timur Square, lovely gardens that dot the city, stunning theatres and museums that – as so many do across the world – serve the interests of an old civilisation and a relatively young nation-state. But the truest sense of Tashkent, of Uzbekistan really, is imbued in its Metro and trains.

The stations are works of art. But they are also living, breathing structures – used by denizens for what they are. They celebrate history and architecture, cosmonauts and poets. No charge, no fuss. Culture and beauty are for everyone. And the public spaces celebrate and reflect that.

At an eatery in Chorsu Bazaar in Tashkent, a chance meeting with Yevgeny Stychkin, a Russian director and actor turns into a revelation about Indian cinema’s Soviet connections. His mother, Kseniya Ryabinkina, played the iconic Marina in Mera Naam Joker (1970). The encounter was serendipitous, of course. It was made possible, however, by the casual openness that is possible only when travellers feel safe and welcome.

Beyond Tashkent, things get even better. Our homestay in Samarkand is less than 50 metres from the Gur-i-Mir complex, where Timur is buried. As he takes us around the mausoleum our guide Fayaaz (yes, the trip was so under budget we got a guide) does not try to whitewash the cruelty of the country’s founding father in times of war, even as he boasts of his achievements – an empire from Russia to almost-Delhi, a phenomenal cultural renaissance, a practical cosmopolitanism. And while Timur’s sacking of Delhi is often recalled as a horror – more so now than ever – it is his descendant that binds us. Babur, now so vilified in the country where he founded the Mughal dynasty, was Timur’s great-great—great grandson.

Apart from the stunning Gur-i-Mir, there is Registan Square, where the scholar, and astronomer, Timurid Ulugh Beg – and later city rulers – built truly stunning Madrasas. His sextant and observatory too are worth a visit, as are the pre-Islamic Afrasiab sites and museum. If the white marble of the Taj Mahal is a monument to love, the brilliant shades of blue and the wide central square bear testimony to scientific temper and rationality.

Bukhara, often its own kingdom in history, is as beautiful, its sites perhaps a shade smaller. But it is relaxed, with small lakes, great wine and great food.

All three cities are both novel and familiar. And in subtle ways, for just about 50k, the country can upturn the assumptions of an insular Indian: Assumptions about “Muslim-ness”, of what an unassuming fraternity and equality looks like. After all, in Samarkand alone, there are at least a dozen nationalities and ethnicities – all citizens. A legacy of the Silk Route and being the capital of a massive empire. Each city has its own plov (a proto- biryani, if you will), and Uzbek beer is better than its Indian counterparts. The familiarity of architecture, of cuisine and culture, and even clothes for someone who lives in north India is palpable. And the person to thank – at least in part – for these connections, for tombs and heritage sites, biryanis and kormas, is today perhaps the most vilified Timurid prince. The great thing, the guarantee, is that there are no temples under the historic masjids, no Tejo Mahal equivalents under the mausoleums.

Shah-i-Zind, Samarkhand. (Credit: Trisha Chandran)

Babur was a Timurid, his claim to Delhi – and before that, Ferghana, Samarkand and Kabul – rested on his distant connection to Timur. Through him, India became part of a larger story. An ancient civilisation was enriched. (No contest, though, almost every biryani is better than the best plov).

Today, of course, “Babur ki aulad” is a term of abuse against Indian Muslims. But Uzbekistan has its traumas too – of ethnicity, of its culture being part of and often subsumed by the Czarist empire and even under the Soviet Union. Yet, history is kept in its place – there is an attempt to learn from it, but not to commit violence in its name. To say, all of it – good and bad – makes us who we are.

Going to Uzbekistan was a great lesson. We should all be glad of Babar’s “invasion”, proud to be his metaphorical aulads – religion, no bar.

Of course, that may not be possible on a week-long holiday. But it’s still a great place to visit.