Translated from the uzbek language by Sarah Kendzyor. U.S.A.
Childhood
It is winter in Bishkek. As my children and I sit in the balcony of our rental home, I lean back and watch as the snow falls to the ground. Sometimes it falls in a rush, sometimes it drifts lightly. These days my hair is coarse, my beard has grown, and I have lost weight. As a stork makes its way through the gusts of snow, I sit quietly, and think about the insanity of my life. If I were to meticulously draw you a picture of my life, you would see an image of a canoe, about the size of a pistachio shell, ceaselessly riding the waves of a Polanesian ocean in the middle of a tropical storm, struggling like a fisherman trying not to drown.The tragiocomedy that is my life is full of both laughter and tears. When I think about it, it seems like I was born a dissident. I remember one evening when I was a kid playing football with other children in the pighouse by the shores of the Qoradaryo and my father became furious with me. That is to say, I was chased from my home. I asked for political asylum from my grandfather, the neighborhood stableman and mullah Abdusalom. Luckily for me, Grandpa and Grandma were no bureaucrats; they granted me political asylum despite my lack of visa or proper documentation.My grandfather lived a long time. He was a man with a long face, a broad forehead, and a short moustache particular to the Islamic madhab of Imam A"zam. Even though he was a stableman, he was also a scholar of the Holy Qur"an. As for my grandmother, she was short and squat, with barely any teeth, but she prayed regularly, and was a kind old woman. Although they were mismatched in the style of Don Qixote and Sancho Panza, my grandfather and grandmother lived together amicably. Because our small home did not have a floor, we would write on a piolos above a thick layer of hay. A man standing over the piolos filled water to drink like it was from a great bit hot-water bottle, in the house there was no radio or TV and silence reigned over the room. In this silence even the sound of a lizard scuttling about sounded like the ticking of a clock.My grandmother spread out soft bedding for me, and as I would lie in bed I could see the full moon gently rising over the enormous poplars near my Aunt Ko"ki"s house. My grandmother would work, mending my grandfather"s robe. My grandfather for 30 years had worn eyeglasses like round discs, a fact blamed on his reading of all kinds of ancient books written in Arabic script, leafing through pages yellowed with age. I began to think about Aunt Ko"ki, whose husband had never returned from WWII, she was an old widow, built as lean as a fish, small in size with a head like a goose, a bad hand, and one blind eye, which would wink like a pigeon egg in a hole of eyes, her thin face having almost no chin.I would pray to God, wondering what the reason was for her husband not having returned from the war. Ko"ki was not the standard name for my aunt, it was more like a pseudonym. The name fit her because she loved her husband greatly, in any case, she did not marry again after her dear husband had passed. She was cheerful to her children, pure of heart, beautiful in spirit, a woman of strong faith who prayed five times a day. In my memories I will forever cherish her. Sometimes an image of Aunt Ko"ki from the window springs to my mind, busying herself in the evening in her hovel, polishing the cotton gin. Some of my poems and stories are written about this old faithful woman, who lived her life alone, unmarried due to the disappearance of his husband in the war.I was thinking about Aunt Ko"ki, how my grandfather would look at her through his thick glasses and say, "Hey, you look familiar, rag lady!" It"s true, these amusing words were among the first I heard. I would end up laughing, but I would try to restrain my laughter saying I was going somewhere even though it was dark. I would turn red, straining my face from holding in the laughter. In the end I did laugh, and seeing me do this, my grandfather laughed too. When I look back on it, my grandmother was also laughing as she polished the cotton gin, showing her toothless gums like those of an infant.The three of us laughed happily. Tears came to my grandmother"s eyes. My grandfather held back his laughter, asking for forgiveness. Eventually our laughter ceased. I listened to the weary voices of the night dogs barking hoarsely, echoing like they were inside a vessel. I gazed at the infinite stars shining like diamonds in a cloudy sky, the bright moon lifted above the poplar trees. I can see this neighborhood as if with my own eyes. After breakfast in the morning, my grandfather again deported me to my home like the captured dissident I was.
SEPARATION
If I didn"t write of my long-suffering mother in this section, it would be as if I were neglecting a great duty. As my poor mother was bedridden for a long time, my father had intended to marry other women. As my dear grandfather Mirjalol and my dear grandmother Maf"firat have said, they loaded my mother"s luggage up on a donkey wagon, wrapped my ill mother up in a quilt, and sent me to lift her up. I was around five years old at this time. After a short time my father married, and jealousy completely wore my mother out. My blessed aunt would say "Let children raise themselves" and to my father say, "Hey, raise your child!", as she was sent to the so"ri tangled in swaddling clothes. Having been informed of these events my uncle, that is, my father"s younger brother Fazil, took me. "Take, consider it yourself," said Mirjalol to my elders.
As I bounced back and forth between them like a tennis ball, my grandfather Abdusalom heard was what happening and scolded my father and uncle, saying he would take care of it himself. My aunt Patila who was divorced and had no children began to raise me. When my aunt left to marry a man named Ismon aka, my father"s second wife, my step-mother, who was childless, began to bring me up as if I were her own child. I was around seven years old at this time.
And so my little brother and I began to grow up with our step-mother. I slowly made my way through school. At the beginning of school a friend at the time named Erkin was raising cattle along the shores of the Qoradaryo. I still remember mosquitoes would fly near their tails, which would wave indolently, carefree, the cows spouting horns overnight, myna birds looking them over, moving en masse down the river, loud noises urging them on towards the shores, escavators into the far distance, the rice fields sparkling like the glass of a mirror, the far "Zilolmas", or "Green bridge", through which the train would pass by, shrieking, the far side of the river bright green in the aerodrom where the AN-20 airplanes would fly overhead. Erkin and I were two untamed savages, building a shallow ford of rocks in the river, the thickets in sight far in the distance, high and imposing cliffs casting the waves of the river. Sometimes my mother would enter my dreams in this heavenly part of my most wonderful homeland.
I long for this place, to return to my homeland. But in this I had no choice. I recently spoke with my father by telephone from Bishkek.
"Salom, how"s it going?" asked my father, inquiring as to the situation. "What are you doing? Why haven"t you come?" he added.
"Dada, I can"t come. If I come they will jail me," I said.
"Why would they jail you? What"d you do, kill someone?" said my father.
I had said it was "for speaking the truth", a sentiment that left a bitter taste in my father, difficult to swallow, and the tears that rolled down my face stung my eyes like poison.
"You can"t raise your children as an outcast in a foreign land. Is that not the truth, my child?" asked my father. He also began to cry. After remaining silent for a bit he spoke again. "OK, fine, take care wherever you go. They pray for you from afar.
OK, I may write about this afterwards. Now I will detail a few things from my mother"s death. It was the end of summer. Fruits were blossoming near the shores where the children were herding cattle.
At this time I saw a guy riding a bike past the dam made of dirt in the rode. As he approached I saw that it was my uncle. He came up to me on the bike. Looking at me, he said: "Go, I"m here to take you. Your mother"s time has come." I blew him off. "No, I"m herding the cattle, I can"t do it, I don"t have the time," I said. My uncle blanched at these words and took me home, leaving my friends to herd the cattle. At home my mother"s sister Fotima was waiting with my grandmother. With my uncle and grandmother and little brother we attached the cart to the car. My grandmother stroked my head and wept. It became obvious, looking at this situation, that my poor mother had truly died. They took us to the house where my mother had been living.
My brother was filled with sadness as he wrapped my mother"s body in the embrace of the quilt. I began to feel afraid. Before the funeral my mother was shrouded, my uncles surrounding the tobut, my aunts, grandmothers began weeping. Despite this my uncle, who was a smalltime gambler, brought out some white sugar. "Hey, why did my uncle bring out sugar when everyone is crying?" I wondered, and said, "Give the sugar to me." I seemed to have made a mistake. "I do not shrivel like a maxsi in the face of death", my uncle Muhammad turned pale and said this was not sugar, these were teeth. In my youth my devils came quickly. Despite myself I began to laugh, my shoulders shaking.
My aunts stopped weeping and gazed at me furiously. My eldest aunt did not hesitate, she shook one of her fingers at me - "Why are you laughing, do you have a heart of stone?! Cry!" she ordered. I laughed harder, as if in place of crying. I knew that if I stopped laughing it would be like this. Although it was a time when all the peoples of the world grow sombre, this lightened me. She was my sole lawyer who did not need a bribe, a sweet and long-suffering soul. I would never learn how to be eternally separated from my dear mother.
DISSIDENT
Translated by from the uzbek language Sarah Kendzyor. U.S.A.
I"ve been a dissident ever since my early years, when the pain, suffering and unjust tyranny I experienced made me so. Although my younger brother and I were brought into the world by the same mother and father, we were total opposites in terms of character. My brother was hot-headed and industrious, whereas I was a romantic. In December I would gaze into the pitch-black sky for hours as the snow fell and the cold wind blew. I could never sleep on the nights when the snow was falling. Watching through the window as the snow fell heavily was for me the most pleasurable experience, particularly when morning would come and the trees, the roofs of houses, and the fields and gardens would be covered in pure white snow! On these snowy dawns when the limbs of the trees were bent under the burden of snow, I would go onto the street and yell out "Heeeey!" in delight and surprise. I planned on tasting the snow that lay in a canal under the concrete bridge with an iron barrier. In doing so, however, my tongue became stuck to the iron. A person whose tongue is stuck to iron is not able to speak.
"Aaaaa!" I"d always yell. It was lucky for me that my stepmother would see me from outside. "Voy, if I don"t die," she"d say, dismayed at what I was doing. Once submerged in the hot water of the tea kettle my iron tongue would thaw out, and I was freed of the "trap".A long time has passed since these events. I remember that I especially loved spring. On the roof of the mud-walled warehouse I would watch the kites flying in the clear blue sky, the apricots in bloom in the garden, the friendly children yelling and the birds somersaulting in the air. One summer day I was sitting on the roof when the voice of the womenfolk came from our neighbor"s yard. I saw that the 16-year-old daughter of my neighbor"s wife was swimming completely naked in an area blocked off on the ground on four sides. It was the first time in my life I had seen such an erotic sight. An unfamiliar sensation entered my body, a strange feeling, and I felt an uncomfortable lump in my throat. I gulped audibly. As I was going to again take a look at this, my brother called out to me impatiently. Startled by his voice, I fell from the roof with an unpleasant "obbo!" --We"re going to herd the cattle," said my brother, pulling up on a bicycle with a sickle in one hand. "They are out to pasture. Are we going again? What about the heat? The sun will be on us!" I said. My brother, anger in his eyes, clenched his jaw and stared at me: "We can"t buy hay in winter," he said. I said that I wasn"t going. My brother replied: "I"m telling you what"s going to happen. I"m going to count to three. Oonnne, twoooo." At this point my father called to us from the house. "What"s going on?" he asked my brother.
"I told him that we"re going but he won"t budge," said my brother.
My father stared at me like a pumpkin growing and said to my brother, "If words don"t work, kick him in the stomach." I had no choice but to join my brother. We trod through the heat to the Qoradaryo and arrived at its shores at a watering hole near the edge of the cliffs. It is not difficult to fall down in this area. Coming back hurts like a dog. We entered the grassy area where the grains grew. My brother began gathering, I harvested and carried the grasses. We began to bundle it. As we prepared the bundles, intending to take them on our shoulders, my brother let out a cry: "What are you looking at, help me!"
I helped my brother with his bundle of hay. My brother managed to lift it but still lost his balance and fell over into the mud. I saw his stooped appearance in the mud and began to laugh. My brother spoke to me angrily: "What are you laughing at? You are laughing at your grandmother"s falondaqasi [???], eh?" he said and threw a rock weighing about half a kilo. The situation had become serious. I began to flee. My brother yelled out again: "Stop! Stop! I"m telling you to stop! If you know what"s good for you you'd get back here, kid!"
I stopped: "If I come, you will hit me!" I began to cry. My brother replied: "Hit, Hamzani!" and threw the rock at me with the strength of one hand. The rock smacked me with a "gup" and hit me in the waist. "Ahhh!" I cried and moaned to the sky, the pain spreading throughout my body. It had knocked the wind out of me. My brother said, "Don"t make excuses, you vile person, now I"m going to get my sickle. Get back here now!" As I caught my breath I quickly became afraid and groped at my midsection, crying, and approached my brother. We loaded the bicycle with the bundles of hay. Until we arrived at the slopes near the watering hole we were on the same side.From my own close relative, a hatred for injustice, oppression and violence arose in my heart that day.
Although at the time my brother was a young man, given the way our father raised us, this stayed with me for a long time, and as I grew up and I fought with tyrants, defending the oppressed became a routine way of life.
"The Death of a Poet"
Chapter from the novel "Lights far away" of Holdor Volcano
My interest in creative literature began very early. At this time the poet Olimjon Matmurodov lived on our street. He was a short, thin man with hair down to his shoulders, joking eyes, a moustache like Stalin"s, and a tattoo of Lenin on his chest. He loved to drink wine, wrote beautiful lyrics and poems, and from time to time would have satirical drawings published in the newspaper. I envied his unconventional life.His works were true art, the kind that bewitched the person reading it; they were poems written with soul. Unfortunately, so very unfortunately, there was no use for his poems in literary society. At this time our neighborhood was called Krupskaya, pronounced kirpiska as it wasn"t part of the old language. We would walk on the street along with Olimjon Mamurodov. On one side of the street there was a canal called Qurama and a lot of trees. Willows grew on either side of the canal and huge poplars bent in the wind. People planted flowers along the heights of the canal; if there was a point to the canals, it"s that they cleared things away. In the summer we children would become full like that, students overflowing like the water from the Qurama canal from morning until night, yelling in excitement and being immersed, constantly splashing in the canals, the shores of our hot desert, taking to the water like frogs.Sometimes when we would get dressed we would cast off our clothes along with our friends" clothes, undoing our shirtsleeves and pants: "Bezgak shoomol beeez bez! Yaaalong'ochga eees es!" we would cry. I would dress quickly and with surprise would discover that I would have on the clothes of my friends.One day we were out on the street, not doing much, when a mute child by the name of Arabboy came up to us. We considered him like an Arab as his build was small and thin and another child by the name of Isroil would get in fistfights with him. They would also pick fights with my older brother Adham.
His fighting was also amusing as he would point with two fingers at Arab and Isroil and say "Which one are you?", and the opponent would point to the biggest finger. You see, when Arab and Isroil would be going at it like two biting dogs, out in streets, which were covered in sand and dust, the children would shout: "Israel and Arabia are at war! Go get him, Arab! Hit him, Israel!" Arab and Isroil would fight each other and put on quite a show. In terms of fighting, although Isroil was smaller in size and didn"t give a lot of hits, he did not lose, he was unequalled, refusing to become crippled and defeated in the "battles". On our streets the Israel-Arab war reached the desert of Arabboy"s family. Years passed and Arabboy"s father"s family returned to our village. But our friend Arabboy did not return. It is rumored that Arabboy was involved in a tractor accident. His leg slipped, got caught in the plow, causing a loud clanking sound. His body was dragged mercilessly by the tractor. The man driving the tractor did not hear him cry out as he died. Such was the way in which Arabboy met his tragic demise. Isroil is still around. Let him live long and prosper.In the far-away time of our childhood, our street was not paved with asphalt, and if it rained, it would turn to mud. The rocks and bricks would cede, wooden branches would appear in the rice fields, and storks would fly searching for frogs that floated about. Sometimes people who were not cautious would get their shoes and boots stuck in the debris.The head of the collective farm and other lower-ranked officials were indifferent to this situation. It was around that time that Olimjon Matmurodov"s article "Suvonqul suvoqchi" was published in the journal Mushtum. The poet used as his basis an advertisement popular in Uzbekistan at the time: "When you need to wash your home, give us a call. When the rain covers our street into crushed straw, passersby will be ready with straw-caked mud in no time. We will plaster your home with this mud of the highest quailty. Sincerely, Suvonqul Suvoqchi," he concluded.After this article was published, they began paving our street. The most interesting thing was that they did not pave the road near Olimjon Matmurodov"s home. Naturally, the poet made his displeasure known. One day a builder named Qoravoy took an enormous chunk of gravel from the street and hurled it at Olimjon Matmurodov"s head, injuring him. But the poet seemed almost indifferent to this, and did not depart from the road he had chosen. He continued to wield his pen in the fight against injustice. In the end someone stabbed him. The headstrong poet from our neighborhood ended up dying in the hospital.Before the "Andijon events" took place, I would walk under the high precipice of the Qoradaryo river. I would see Bahodir, the son of the poet Olimjon Matmurodov, herding hundreds of ducks along the shore. Moving along, they would flicker like bits of snow. Once in a while, I remember the poet who had lived this beautiful life, particularly when I feel lonely. The pain of being a poet, to face off in that way against tyranny - to me Olimjon Matmurodov was nothing short of amazing.
First Love.
I don"t subscribe to the saying "There is no love in this world, the road of love is to the bed." Because in my youth a great wind of love swept me a way like a harsh summer wind sweeps away the crops. There was a girl in my village, Gulandom, whom I loved, and like a person bewitched by a jinn, I dreamt of her constantly. I never tired of seeing her face. If I saw her with other girls, I would say "ohhh" and duck away quickly. I could not summon the courage to write her a letter telling her of my love. I worried that if I wrote her, she"d say something like: "I beg your pardon, but I do not love you. Please don"t write me any more letters," or that she would write me a negative response, or tear up my letters. The road seemed to be blocked.I wanted to fearlessly say to her, "Guli, I am in love with you" but when I stood before her I couldn"t even speak. This was especially true if a movie would come to our village, which for me was a happy occasion, because my heart would leap at the thought of Guli also attending this movie. I would wash and get dressed up and head out for the evening event. As it became dark, people would sit out on the grass. Women would come out, excited to see the show, chatting and sewing fancy clothes, stomping ants that crawled on the ground.
The film that was playing was called "Sangam". I watched with my own eyes as people wept, moved by the main character Sundr, who gazed at the sky in order to keep from crying and sang a piano song about an unfaithful friend. Like Sundr I wanted to be an aviator, supporting my homeland in the military, jumping from a parachute while under siege, a military commander presumed to be dead: "In the course of defending the homeland, Xaldarsinx died a heroic death and has been named a hero of the Soviet Union. In front of the office of the "Maslaxat" collective farm an official document proclaiming his heroism and a military order covered in dark cloth are to be delivered to his father, Abdumalik aka, and to Guli. If I recover in the hospital, a black ribbon affixed to my picture, as she weeps, lips trembling, as she regards the documents, then like Sunder I will look elsewhere in order to stop the tears flowing from my eyes over the piano song of his unfaithful friend.. Guli:
"Xaldarsinx, I swear to God, stop it, this song of yours! You have won my heart with what you have written!" I wished she would say, and if she cried, I would keep on singing, and singing...However, my dream did not come to pass. I could not be an aviator. And when I joined the military, Guli had already married a boy named Muzaffar. One very rainy day we ran into each other in the village shopping district. She had a child in her arms. We inquired as to our respective situations, and as we walked along we began to talk. "Xoldor-aka, when we were young we had such good times, it was almost like a fairy tale." I said: " Yesss, and now that I"ve become a writer and poet who has published books, I do not know if what I"ve said has emptied the treasure trove of words that I have."
"If your sons marry, will you invite me to the wedding?" she asked.
"Of course," I answered. Finally it became time for us to say goodbye.
"Xoldor-aka," Guli said, "has our time walking together on this road come to an end...?"
I understood then that Guli had always loved me and still does today. When we were young I had thought of myself as an ugly child, and so I never told Guli of my love for her, I had many insecurities. We spent a long time that day in the rain, saying goodbye. Guli finally left to make her way home, and as I watched her go, I stood in the rain and cried. Oh Guli, Guli, I am so ashamed, why do I love, yet only tell myself? Afterwards I took out my notebook and pen and wrote:
Today I saw the girl I loved on the street
Her hair grew lighter as she left.
This world is very curious. I separated from my first wife, and then married again. My wife"s name is Gulsora but I call her Guli. Every time I say Guli I am reminded of my first love Gulandom walking into the distance. When I told this to my wife, she laughed. She takes pity on me.
"Party"
My creative interests were not limited to literature alone. I also liked to draw pictures. In my brother"s book there were copies of a painting called "The Burlaks" by the Russian artist Ilya Repin. In it a group of hungry, exhausted, bearded men walked along the shores of the Volga river, a ship visible in the distance. Their heads were held down and their shoulders were tied with ropes, like they were animals. One day I saw a scene like this at the threshing floor of the collective farm where cotton was harvested. On this hot day in the middle of September a group of people, much like a group of prisoners, were lined up with their hands behind their backs, stomping the cotton on the threshing floor.
Their terrible situation reminded me of that of the burlaks. As November gave way to the frosts of December, there was no more cotton, and in order to do work for the "Homeland", cotton picking season had to continue, and in the evenings "harvester" machines would rumble, making an incredible racket as they ground the cotton bolls and divided the remaining cotton up, the people working there breathing in their dust. Although the dozens of "harvesters" would speak loudly in one voice, the meaning of their words was indecipherable, and it was impossible to tell which task the machines were performing at any given time. As the folk phrase "picked cotton ball" denotes, people in the harvesting machines would pull one over on them and escape home. The riches above ground, in general, move to a man within a pipeline with ease. The Uzbek people who have not shared in this zeal for gasoline used cotton to fuel their homes, much to their distress, and in the winter they would load the stove with coal and lay down on top of it, wrapped up in a quilt, trying to last the winter. Both my brother and I would brace ourselves for the cold, and halfway through the night we would be like a picked cotton ball. I would relish the heat of where we slept, but my brother did not feel this way. I thought about how the people who worked covered in the dust and pollen of the harvesting machines must have dust in their lungs that had been building up for quite some time. All their life they had been breathing in this poison, their nerves frazzled by the ceaseless noise, working around the clock for little in return.In our village the people picked not only cotton but also silk, taking the silkworms while they were sleeping. In the gloomy dim of dawn they would sharpen their axes and slice down the branches of the mulberry trees. Sometimes the trees would resist this and even a powerful blow of the axe would just bring injury to the person wielding it.Our community was dominated by a communist ideology. In front of every Soviet village building, in the office of every office of the heads of the collective farms, there would be a statue of the indigent genius Vladimir Lenin. His acolytes would tie red cloths to his neck, play the bugle and raise the flag. The sound of drums would echo in the streets as they fastened a wreath around his head, and people would emerge, grinning, from their mud-brick houses to take it all in. Children dreamed of becoming pioneer heroes like Pavlik Morozov, Petya Klipa, and Qichan Jakipo. At this time in our village there was a man named Kamoliddin. He was a good-natured man with a booming voice. He would walk amongst the people around singing loudly, his eyes wide, and when he laughed his mouth would open wide and he would reveal his small teeth. The nickname of this remarkable person was "Party". Some called him "partkom", or "party committee". Others shortened this to Kompartiya, taking the name from the words Komoldin and party. As is evident from this, whenever this person would promote the ideas of the communist party to the people, the people who were members of the komparty would invite him and as a result most of them said that he was a hardcore communist. When one member decided to investigate this, however, they found that Kamoliddin-aka was actually not among the ranks of the Kompartiya. After that, Kamoliddin aka, once called "Party", was found under the worthy penname of "muborak", or "happy". The "Komoliddin party" would sing in the fields, saying let there be water in the cotton plants, let the sun shine. He would wear a folded up newspaper on his head as a hat, and from time to time would read the articles and reports printed on it. If he was tired, he would lie down in the grass and sleep under this same newspaper, and if he felt like playing cards, he would tear up the newspaper into pieces and do so. It was truly a newspaper to serve all purposes.I remember that one day he said something interesting to me. He claimed that one evening a collective farm worker named Mirzavoy was distributing water into the cotton fields by himself under the light of the moon, and that in order for the water not to flood, he was filling the ditch with pieces of paper used as a type of organic fertilizer. Suddenly Mirzavoy heard a rustling sound. He stopped his work to listen to the sound, but then everything became silent. He thought, well, I guess I"ll get back to work, but then the sound started up again. Now Mirzavoy was frightened, because the villagers had told about their bad luck with distributing water in these fields. They said that at night a lone man had seen two wise women singing a sorrowful lullaby to a child cloaked in a white burial shroud, his hands covered up. The man"s voice became a croak as he told of how the exorcism rites performed had no effect. Thinking of this ominous tale, Mirzavoy-aka grabbed his hoe and fled toward the village. The rustling sound continued to follow him, as if something were hunting him down. Mirzavoy the irrigation expert ran home in terror, feeling like he was being pursued by whatever was making this sound. When he arrived at his house, his wife, who was standing in the yard, looked alarmed.
"Oh my God, what happened to you? Why are you running?" she asked.
"The two wise women were chasing me!" he cried and ran into the house. As his wife asked him questions, Mirzavoy the irrigation expert explained that he was pursued by something making a rustling sound and that it had followed him all the way to his home. Witnessing his fright, his wife began to laugh. "Hey, don"t worry too much. You may notice that you have a piece of paper caught in your belt. That sound you heard was the wind rustling the paper as you ran!" she said, cracking up.
A "political swindler" who left our village loved this amusing story, never tiring of laughing about it with that happy fellow Komoliddin, the loud voice of the "party". Komoliddin, whose teeth were small like a dolphin,"s but healthy and gleaming white. Komoliddin, whose honest laughter floods my memory like a ray of sunshine time and time again.
Don Quixotе
When I first read "Kashtanka", the noted literary work by the writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, I was overcome with melancholy as in this book reflected suffering like a faithful lapdog. For a few weeks I no longer wanted to speak but wanted to live alone with this work. It was "Don Quixote" that brought me out of this self-indulgent mood.
In this amazing work by Miguel de Cervantes, the protagonist is a man from La Mancha, the hidalgo Quixano. Quixano, who was tall with a pointed beard and a mustache like a cockroach on his face, was suffering from malnutrition, but nonetheless became a knight. Riding a donkey with his short, stout companion Sancho Panza by his side, he had many adventures, which I read about with wonder.
Don Quixote wore armor and a helmet constructed out of old chain mail. He carried a massive spear, and abused the mangy horse he rode, putting him down, charging at windmills, thinking that the horse was created by a wicked sorcerer, tripping over his spear and falling flat on his back. As I read of all this I laughed and laughed. One day a man named Jamoldin responded to my laughter:
"It looks to me like he"s lost his mind, you rascal. And if it"s not craziness, then what is a great man doing tipping at windmills with his lance? Has he a prayer? Again mercy on the Spaniards for forgiving this craziness. As for us, though, such a person should be wearing a straightjacket in a mental institution. If he does not submit, put some hash in his pocket in order to deter him from chasing windmills, as such behavior does material damage to the homeland. This man is an enemy of the people who has organized an armed attack on the community property; he should be exiled to Siberia to cut down trees in the swamp."
This statement made me laugh even harder. I ended up reading the whole book again right away. But instead of laughing like I did before, I started to cry. Poor Don"Quixote! Despite being malnourished and unhealthy, he is insulted, beaten with clubs, abused and undefended, but boldly fought against tyrants who had sold their souls.
But as for us? Although we are physically healthy and mentally sound, we are afraid to defend not only the rights of others, but even our own rights. The corrupt lawyers and judges who we call human rights defenders imprison poor victims on baseless charges, unapologetically labeling them as guilty criminals for money. These liars who violate the people"s trust, these unconscionable colonels, these generals of corroded status who sell their faith in the hopes of putting themselves back together, who support tyranny that sheds the people"s blood, who defend bloodthirsty criminals - they shame themselves in front of God, they are the executioners who face off with angels, they brag, but the salt the people give them will be salt in their wounds!
Ohhhh, Cervantes Saavedra! I know that when I read you, I will laugh as I cry! You are the first person in the world to defend human rights! You give a signal to the oppressed, you show the way! The ugly, hulking woman of Alonso -- Dulcinea Toboso - is actually a princess, a beautiful angel in the eyes of Don Quixote, who through his love for her shows something not so simple, the hole in the heart, the honor of a young woman. If those who fight for human rights on the road of Truth are beaten down, then you teach us to be resolute in our struggle!
When the road is long, one"s voice begins to resonate like a monotone, but like a great waterfall you change my consciousness, keep it quick and adept, and I laugh and cry over this work, because it gives the impression of the sentimentalism of the people"s intimate sensitivities. This work preserves the grief and agonies of those living in tyranny, and as I read, I laugh aloud - as this too is my cry!
A Curse on Battles
Translated by from the Uzbek language Sarah Kendzyor. U.S.A.
In this world it is very difficult to find a faithful friend, they are few and far between. But I did have such a friend. His name was Abduvoxid, although he went by the nickname of "Po'kis". He had doe eyes and curly hair, and was by nature a happy, interesting person blessed with the gift of gab. If we didn't see each other for an hour, we would miss each other and would almost always find each other. We studied together at the same school, and I spent almost as much time at his house as I did my own.I liked his parents, brother and sister very much; they became like close relatives to me. Po'kis's father was a man named Yigitli, a tall cheerful man who we called "Rakatak" [a kind of motorcycle] because he was never worried about anything. Yigitali had a sonorous voice, like he was singing a song, and both of us came to memorize his repertoire. In the spring we would play in the yard, and as Yigitali would tend the soil he would sing:
I don't untie my boots
I don't drink your noodle soup.
I cut the trees in the snow
I don't spare any truths.
Your train is trickling
The firebox with the wheel
One of the brave young men of Andijon
Fled to Dvinskiy.
One of the brave young men of Andijon
Did not flee to Dvinskiy.
The cannons of Nikoali
Were forced to flee to Dvinskiy.
At this time the batteries in the transitor radio ran out, and the cassette player wasn't working either. The unmarried young men would play the "Xazar", "Glala" and "Okean" radio stations and sing out songs about love, attracting the attention of nearby girls and expressing our desires to them.
Po'kis's friend Ne'mat aka had stolen some radio airwaves with a police officer using a plate he had installed, and in his homemade studio he would play the songs of Sherali Jo'raev. At this time it was common for young people to do things with pirated radio. When you turned to a certain frequency you could hear unmentionable words or insults. The war of words would reach its peak and as some people became familiar with these broadcasts, they would befriend each other, and we would witness the marriage of various in-laws.
Patriotism and censorship don't mix, and as a result, our nation's beloved singer. [master singer] Sherali Jo'raev was ousted from the arena and his songs came to be broadcast in unofficial radio stations.
Despite their lack of talent, a number of singers who praised the government came to appear on stages and on television. Their bland songs -- the musical equivalent of gruel -- became the voice of the nation and were played on state radio. They disliked the unofficial radio stations and told the government to close them down. But even a dictatorial regime and its sycophants cannot separate themselves from their homeland's beloved singer.
In the heart of the national philharmonic were dark leaders who intended to surrender Sherali Jo'raev's song "You sing a song despicably" to the authorities and ridicule it. But God understands both those who trample the good people of the world as well as those who help those who trample. The holes dug for Sher aka also trapped themselves and were their own downfall.
Sometimes Ne'mat aka would give both Po'kis and I a transistor radio and send us to a far-off neighborhood to check and see if his station was on the air. We would grin from ear to ear when we heard his familiar voice coming from the radio in nearby neighborhoods. Po'kis could be heard in the high cliffs of the Qoradaryo. We used to sit on the shores of the river and watch with pleasure the airplanes departing the aerodrome. The airplanes would soar through the sky, and beneath their wings the combine harvesters would pick the leaves off of the cotton stocks and sprinkle their poisons. We children would joyfully call out to the passengers in the plane, paying no attention to the poison being filtered through the air around us, tipping our doppis [national Uzbek hats] to the sky and waving them farewell.
Naturally, before the poison was spread the collective farm radio would issue a warning. There was a picture of the head of the farm smirking near a cotton field covered in poison, holding up a sign that said "Do not enter!" But we curious children did not care about this sort of thing.
Sitting with my friend in front of the collective farm center as the smoke spread on those summer nights, I would enjoy the sorrowful song of the g'ijjak (a kind of violin) as it played from the radio. We would listen to the sad lullabies and fairy tales told by a female storyteller. We would talk until the ground was coated in dew, laughing at our amusing words. Coutless stars would light the pitch-black skies of these neighborhoods, and somewhere a star would fall, its light tracing its way to the ground until it was nowhere to be seen.
One day Po'kis showed me a bottle with a black liquid [kuzbaslak - ask] inside. I used this liquid to draw a picture of a tiger on an old wall of Po'kis's house. According to Ne'mat aka, this picture is still there and hasn't faded. One time an uncle of Po'kis's returned from military service, and said he had been given his own military belt, which he proceeded to show off. At this time in my youth I didn't like this conceited man. I became enraged for reasons I don't fully know, maybe it was Satan tempting me, and unexpectedly I punched my friend in the jaw. The blow caused Po'kis to lose his balance. He swore at me and fell. I began to run away, laughing. He chased after me. At this time a small piece of earth struck me between the ears and then broke into eight smaller pieces.
Though the fight ended and we eventually made up, we were never close friends again. I still have not forgiven myself for hitting my friend Po'kis. I was so disgusted with myself for doing it I wanted to cut off the offending arm with an axe.
Years passed and we grew up. The military officials came and shaved our heads for military service. People of the same age had to enlist one after another, and before they left they wished each other farewell, and said goodbye like brothers. Po'kis invited me to say goodbye with the other young men in the village. We did service until dawn and then slept. We arose with the neighborhood gamblers who used to stay up all night playing cards. In the morning my time for saying goodbye had passed. We had slept for two full days. When evening came, Po'kis and I picked up our white calico travel bags and wrote on our photos of girls, "Wait for me and I will return." I was very glad to look at the picture in my friend's travel bag.
He said goodbye and was about to head home when for some reason his nose started bleeding. We stopped the blood together. The result was that we ended up staying up around the clock. I took pity on my friend. After that we left for our military service. I served for two years with the Soviet army in Leningrad. Oh Leningrad! Leningrad! If I were to write about my time in the military, it would fill another book.
One day my friend Po'kis wrote me a letter. "Our military unit is being sent to Afghanistan," it said. At the time there was a terrible war going on in Afghanistan. I wrote in response, "My friend, please take care of yourself." At that time I had reached the end of my military service and was returning home.
Once I was walking along a concrete bridge with someone in my village when I ran into Ne'mat aka and my friend on the street. We walked toward each other, saw each other...and I saw that my friend had grown thin. Eventually I found out that in Afghanistan his company had been drinking toxic water from a well. As a result of this terrible event my friend was released from military service and managed to get back home. But he wasn't able to stay in his home long. He became weary and he left. In the morning I went to see him. I went to the place he was staying and brought him out to the street. We recalled the wondrous times of our distant past, our children in the fields near the collective farm. Then Po'kis told the story of his experiences in the war in Afghanistan.
"One day," he recalls, "our unit was under siege. The 'enemies' located on the hill were shooting our soldiers down like they were sparrows. When news of this got out our commanders sent in helicopters, and the 'enemies' stopped their firing and vanished. Despite this, our brothers-in-arms who I was talking with were killed. Very few got out safely. Our Russian commander, seeing these dead soldiers, was devastated and wept, feeling like a father separated from his children. "Children, forgive me, for I did not take care of you," he said, crying. When the car for them arrived, we stacked it with corpses like they were firewood. As the car took off, I got down on my knees and took the boot off a soldier's leg, saying to my commanding officer:
-
"Commander! The leg, Usman's leg!" I said. Because I saw that one of the legs of Usmon, a man from Tashkent, was missing from the corpse. The commander began to cry harder:
"Yes, bury it, to please God," he said.
"We've seen such days, my friend," Po'kis said to me and gazed into the distance silently for a long time. Then he said:
"I have one more month left to live. A month from now, I will die," he said.
"Oh, keep going. You are just feeling afraid," I said. My friend grinned horribly.
"Do not grow weary," I said, and brought him to his house and put him to bed. Days passed. After a little while my friend's condition began to worsen.
One day I came to see him, and Yigitali aka was sitting behind the mosquito netting where my friend was lying and crying.
"Come, my son, come," he said, unable to stop the tears from falling from his eyes. "Your friend has become thin, and sounds hoarse," he said.
My friend's arm was sticking out of the netting. It was like the arm of Alexander extending from the bier. Yigitali aka moved over to the head of the coffin.
"Abduvohid, oh Abduvohid, rise my son, your friend is here," he said, and my friend woke up. His arousal indicated what life he had left in him.
"You don't have to, please don't get up. You should rest. I can come back in the morning," I said.
I woke up the next morning and made my way to my friend's house and up the stairs.
As I entered this room of misfortune, others from our village gathered on the street, holding hands. They stood outside the gate in their traditional robes. I saw Nemat aka trimming the garden, and I began to weep uncontrollably. We embraced warmly, Ne'mat's face coated with tears like dew on the ground at dawn.
I had become alone, separated from my dear friend. Though years have passed, I still do not walk down my friend's street. Because one day I saw his younger sister:
"Xoldor-aka, come to our home. We see you like you are our brother," she said.
"If I come in, you will cry," I said.
"We won't cry," she said, and started to cry. I became afraid that they would all cry.
I curse the war that took the lives of thousands of young men, among them my friend, my wonderful friend from whom I had grown apart.
"SPTU"
Translated by from the Uzbek language Sarah Kendzyor. U.S.A
One day, after I finished eighth grade and was about to start ninth, my father unexpectedly granted me a special kindness:
"Do you want to study at a technical school?" he asked. I was surprised. It was as if a miracle had occurred and my father had suddenly been transformed into another person. I was delighted. I assumed it meant that my father was going to send me to art school because of my talent for drawing.
"Yes, I want to," I said. My father began to talk about the superiority of technical schools for my education.
"The dormitories are free. You get free clothes, and there is a hot meal three times every day," he said. At these words I dropped the watermelon that I had been carrying under my arm.
"Yes, I get it, the cost of clothing and food has become difficult for my father," I thought to myself. It was true, at the time my father was worried. One time a group of artists had come to display at a conference held in the collective farm clubhouse. Because there was a carpenter who kept singing about wood, the head of the farm had my father build a stage. When my father and his pupils finished it, they tried to take a ball of wire outside, and at that point my father ended up getting electrocuted. He had to go to the intensive care unit and ended up being handicapped. From then on it became difficult for him to meet the family"s living expenses. I knew about this, even though I was young. That"s why I decided to reject his invitation even though I understood the real situation. I thought this might help in some small way.
"What kind of subject will I be mastering?" I asked, giving nothing away.
"Tractors," my father answered. I had to think about this one - my interest in technical subjects was absolutely zero. But I thought to myself, maybe this would ease my father"s pain.
"OK, I"ll do it," I said. My father beamed.
"Alright, let"s get your things together. I"m going to take you to see a professor at the technical school," he said.
I packed up my things. We went through the cotton fields on the collective farm to get to the technical school. I knew that this school accepted people without an examination. When we arrived my father sent me to meet with the professor in the field shelter. I recognized some children who I had not thought about since I was seven who were now technical college students. As they returned from the cotton they begun to study. As luck would have it, there were some subjects taught there that I had interest in. The technical college library became a favorite place of mine. I initially thought I saw poets working there. One day during the break our literature teacher made note of a poem that had been written on the table in pen.
"Did you copy these poems from somewhere?" I asked. The teacher laughed and answered: "I wrote this poem myself." I was surprised.
"Hey, teacher, do you work as a poet?" I asked. Again he laughed.
-
"Anyone could write a poem. Poetry is not a profession," he said.
I was quiet for a moment, and then asked:
"Could I write a poem as well?"
"Of course," he replied.
The bell rang and class began. I listened eagerly to the lesson that he was teaching that day. I vowed to myself that from that day forward, I would write poems. After the class I started to write a poem on paper but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn"t compose a single line of poetry.
The next day I told the teacher that I was unable to write poetry. From then on he taught me the secrets of writing poetry, and I wrote a poem about a breeze, and from there kept going. I still remember these verses:
Breeze, soft breeze
Leaves dancing in the wind
Flirting with the sky, with the air
Flapping your wings down.
Having written that verse with my teacher, I continued the poem:
You blow in the night by the full moon,
Smiling in encouragement,
Your wave cannot endure the valley,
Your strength is tested in action.
A dandelion blooms again,
In response you say hello.
All this unlimited land before you,
You sink deep in thought.
After he read my poem, my teacher stared at me in surprise.
"Excellent, in the future you will be a great poet," he said.
The teacher who said these words was the poet Farid Usmon, who is known for his distinctive mix of contemporary Uzbek literature and classical Arabic-Persian prosody.
That is how I began writing poems. One wonderful day my friends Rashid and a poet named Olimjon Xoldor brought me to their literature circle. Olimjon Xoldor would sit in a seat which had been transformed into a place of honor for the occasion, poets would read a designated poem, and discuss what they thought.
One time I brought a poem I had written about a frog to the group. The poem was about a frog that had bounced around a stove and was burnt by coal, and juxtaposed with a cold child. The greedy frog, who had swallowed the coal, died tragically through his desire.
After I"d read my poem, Olimjon Xoldor turned towards the circle:
"Who wants to give their opinion of this poem?" he said. Someone raised their hand. It was the poet Nusrat Abdusalomov. He stood up and began to criticize my poem.
"A frog never would swallow coal," he said. I was very upset. Then someone else raised their hand. I recognized him as the well-known poet Karimjob Qobilov. Qobilov was a thin man with long hair, over which he wore a cap, and he was crippled in one leg. He had a nose like a Bulgarian pepper; great, buling eyes, and a long face. This poet stood up, and said that he had liked my poem: