Chasing Babar

Your first indication that this journey is going to be, well, different, is when you board the plane in Delhi for Tashkent. This isn8217;t your Airbus, or even 737; this looks like a relic from the Cold War, a Soviet military transporter or even a converted cargo plane. The deck is so roomy it must be a Russian plane; the Americans would simply have split it into two classes. The seats don8217;t recline, there8217;s no in-flight entertainment none intended, anyway and the stewardesses would do well in a Gulag film. That image is reinforced to the nth degree when the meal is served. The coffee is strong 8212; no stinting there 8212; and my request for more milk is treated like something out of Oliver Twist. Most worrying, though, is the thick white smoke that emanates from the AC vents at regular intervals. Is this oxygen? Are we crashing? Are they sedating us for the horrors ahead? The possibilities are endless.

All this is compensated, though, by the view from the window and for once you offer thanks that this is a low-flying aircraft. The mighty Karakoram range stretches below you, an imperial, impervious, impregnable stretch of rock. It8217;s a vision that brings to mind harshness, cruelty and savagery; traits that made Genghis Khan and his ilk the legends they are. But there8217;s a beauty in the savagery; it doesn8217;t catch your eye immediately, but it sinks in after you8217;ve spent a while gazing at the black mass below you.

Soon, you pick up the inflight magazine and the names spring up: Samarkand, Ferghana, Khiva, Tashkent8230; They roll off your tongue easy enough, as if they are part of your culture. And they are, because much of what we are today stems from the influence of Babar and his successors. And so the flight quickly becomes a journey of discovery. We look for signs in almost everything; each word has a hidden meaning, a ring of familiarity. The perfumed tissue paper is called xushbo8217;y qog8217;oz khushboo-kagaz?. The packet of sugar has shakar written on it. And airlines, in Uzbek, is havo yollari. The familiarity extends only to print, however; spoken Uzbek, especially rapidly-spoken Uzbek, could as well be Greek.

Unfortunately, we can8217;t, from our plane, see any of the magnificent buildings their posters advertise. The brilliant-blue domes, the sparkling, proud minarets, the sprawling gardens. Tashkent is a dusty-brown sprawl of single-storeyed buildings with the odd skyscraper thrown in. Our time at the airport is mainly spent standing in one line or another, perhaps because the man who drives the airport bus is also the fellow at the check-in counter and at security, too.

Despite all this, though, something makes us want to stay on in Tashkent. Maybe it8217;s the urge to discover the real Uzbekistan the one behind the stewardesses8217; iron mask, maybe the romance associated with the Mughals, maybe the joys of a holiday where the rupee is relatively strong. I really don8217;t know. What I do hope, though, is one day we will summon up the courage to look that implacable security guard in the eye and say quot;Ye, we are staying.quot; And tell friends and colleagues that we8217;re flying Uzbek again.