BAKHTIYOR SHARIPOV

Late pigeons

(a story)

“NAVRO’Z”

Publishing House

Tashkent – 2018

A story of vivid and sorrowful love

…The pigeons, spinning and dancing around the dome of Bibikhanum Mosque, don’t rest for a second, rolling like acrobats in pairs, one after another, and again they land on the dome. The next pair begin their dance. Their greyish and turquoise feathers, the emerald and sapphire ones on their wings and necks, sparkle in the rays of the sun, blazing the eyes.

But, Otabek, who saw Raykhona here for the first time, where he used to observe the pigeons’ dance with pleasure, not far from the stalls of bread in the bazaar, lost his calmness and his whole body was wrapped up with the fire of love, and he became crazy of her…

Now, “Majnun, who wanders in the lonely deserts, being thirsty, wants to drink, and drink and drink from the spring of Layli’s love…. Majnun consents to any difficulty of being thirsty, but being alone, without Layli, was driving him mad and sorrowful. Majnun desired Layli from the bottom of his heart, and his love was not far from him. His lips were thirsty of love, wanting to get drunk from their meeting. Everything was forgotten, everything was covered with astonishing easiness around, and there were only Layli with Majnun,left alone, in the universe.”

May this story, of vivid and sorrowful love of Bakhtiyor Sharipov, be blessed to all of us!

Yakhyo Togha

A member of Uzbekistan Writers’ Association

ISBN 978-9943-381-98-8

FOREWORD

Abdulla Kodiriy, a tremendous writer once wrote: “Since we entered into a new epoch, we follow the novelties of this new epoch in any direction, and thus we change in writing of stories, novels and epics, we feel the responsibility of introducing modern epoch “Takhirs and Zukhras”, “Chor Darveshs”, “Farkhads and Shirins” and “Bakhromgurs” to our people.”

This story tells about two hearts full of pure love, who struggled to reach their dreams decisively and born after independence of our country. And along with this, we have to mention that there have been a lot of illegal cases, eyewash conditions due to activities of dishonest and self-seeking people, who care for their welfare before those of others in society, being engrossed in gathering wealth with no respect to constitutional rights and human safety, guaranteed by law.

Otabek’s love, his other half, becomes a victim of this sanctimony in the story. Raykhona, with her name resembling her beautiful body, had a lot of dreams and plans in life.

Raykhona was a beauty of Samarkand, the only child of Masturakhon, her mother and Mansurjon, her father, a beloved daughter-in-law of Kimyokhon and Yusufbek, from Tashkent. Exploiting DAMAS as a public transport, a minivan model of car which doesn’t correspond to passenger transportation safety requirements, was the only factor of putting an end to not only Raykhona’s life but to many other innocent people in the late 20 years. This was the result of unlawful situations in the sector, executive negligence, indifference and irresponsibility for their duties.

After having realized that Raykhona, his wife, was the victim of this injustice and feeling responsibility before her soul Otabek decides to fight by himself against this unlawfulness in order prevail justice.

In the end of the story exploiting DAMAS as a public transport, which doesn’t correspond to passenger transportation safety requirements, becomes banned countrywide and justice triumphs.

…Otabek deliriously woke up. The pillow was wet from his sorrowful tears, but his heart was somehow calm and there was brightness in it. He said a prayer for the sole of his beloved reading from the holy Koran ayats and prayed....

The author

June 26, 2018

Every bird flies with its pair in the sky,

Pigeon with pigeon, and crow with crow.

1

Otabek was interested in learning the Japanese language from his childhood. He studied in the world languages university, studied tourism and got the profession of a guide-translator. He translates the works of famous Uzbek writers into Japanese, and delivers them to the Japanese departments of colleges, touristic companies and travelers on request and demand. Recently he has worked for two months in Japan by invitation of Tokyo Oriental Studies Center.

There were few tourists visiting Central Asia in Soviet Union period, and most of them even weren’t aware of existence of a country named Uzbekistan. And those who came to visit were accompanied by a translator from Moscow.

During the years of independence Uzbekistan became well known worldwide, and the number of tourists visiting increased. Most of these tourists are interested in historical masterpieces being preserved through ages in the cities of Bukhara, Samarkand and Khiva, and some of them are fond of ecotourism, bio tourism and the tourism of pilgrimage.

Otabek guides Japanese travelers who came to see ancient monuments of historical cities of Uzbekistan, tells the incidents, myths and legends about them.

Whenever Otabek comes to Samarkand he takes tourists to Siyab Bazaar, not far from a mosque called “Bibikhanum” amongst local people. He lets tourists go through the bazar and watches beautiful Galaosiyo bread laid in the stalls. Then he buys two loaves of bread and eats a piece with appetite observing the pigeons roaring and dancing over the dome of the mosque…

Pigeons…Otabek likes watching these birds fly in the sky. Even once he heard a friend of his bought one for decent amount and went there to see the bird. But the birds flying over the dome of Bibikhanum Mosque were somehow different from those of tamed ones…

So what is the difference? Their greyish and turquoise feathers, the emerald and sapphire ones on their wings and necks, sparkle in the rays of the sun, blazing the eyes. They do not rest for a second, they turn over like acrobats, and dance one after another and again land on the dome. The next pair of birds begin their dance and so on. Otabek never gets tired of watching them, he continues watching until the tourists finish their shopping and getting acquainted with oriental type of bazaar and come out. The Japanese also look at the pigeons and get admired, they start taking photos. Along with this, Otabek still wonders about the difference between these birds and domestic ones…

When Otabek guided his next group of tourists to Samarkand, as usual he sent them to Siyab Bazaar to do shopping and went to Galaosiyo bread stalls, bought bread and ate a piece of it eagerly and started watching the pigeons flying and landing on the dome of the mosque. After a while the tourist gathered in the agreed place.

“Is everybody here?”– Otabek said, and turned his head to the bread stalls unintentionally. Looked …. and ….turned aside as if his face was set on fire … After a while, he again looked back at the same place. There was a girl, with a friendly face among the women, and she was selling bread to customers. “Oh my God, the stall is full of bread, but everybody is waiting in a queue to buy from her” – he thought and started walking there involuntarily…

After recovering he saw the girl leaning towards him with two loaves of bread and smiling. Not knowing what to do he simultaneously put his hand in his pocket and gave the money to her. The girl took the required amount from the bunch and returned the rest.

“Please, keep the change!” – he said. “I don’t need the change,” – the girl replied, raising her eyebrows and continued: “Give it to gypsies over there, and they will pray for you…”