Chandigarh is just like a resort city

Ask him about affinities between Krygyzstan and Chandigarh and his face lights up. "You have pullao, and so do we. You add onions to the pullao, and call it piaz – it is the same in our country. You buy pullao and piaz from the bazaar, and so do we.

And nothing like barf added to a drink to beat the heat." While members of the Friends of Indo-Kyrgyz Forum are busy noting these similarities, he talks about the scope that their language offers for linguists and researchers. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has already been signed by the Kryghyz embassy with the Panjab University and they are planning to send students to Chandigarh this very year.

Not that their country is lacking in higher education. The population of five million has 40 universities and the country boasts of a literacy rate of 91 per cent. The president of the Indo-Kyrgyz Forum, Anmol Rattan Sidhu is also a senator of PU. Talks with Sidhu and the PU VC, Prof M. M. Puri has convinced him that Chandigarh is a good academic destination. It is not just in trade and commerce that Kyrgyzstan is seeking affinities with India. The nearness also has some potential for linguists. Kadyraliev has grown fond of the Lake and the Chandigarh Club and is planning to send a cultural troupe to the club for a performance.

The meeting he had with the Punjab Chief Minister, Parkash Singh Badal focussed on opening up of a Punjab Trade Centre at Bishkek, the capital city. "You see apart from the linguistic affinities, another thing is common – hospitality, and this is where the Punjabis and the Kyrgyz are unbeatable".