Snippets from Turkmenistan
Its funny how things that you learnt many years ago in school crop up in your mind at the oddest of places. In 9th or 10th standard we had a collection of short stories as a textbook in our English class. One of them, titled “How Raj Kapoor Saved My Life”, was a small, but well written piece describing an incident that the author experienced when he visited Russia (or at least I think it was Russia). The story had something to do with how the author was in a strange land, did not know the language, and got into a spot of bother from which he extricated himself by mentioning the famous actor Raj Kapoor’s name, whose movies were apparently closely followed and worshipped. Back in the day, I thought that the story was interesting, and fun, but thought no more of it. This morning, however, crossing the border from Turkmenistan to Uzbekistan, I faced a similar experience, and thank not Raj Kapoor, but Shah Rukh Khan.
It was a rather hot and dry morning, and our overland bus, carrying nineteen of us, mostly Brits, a smattering of Kiwis, an Aussie driver, a Spanish couple, a small but significant minority of Americans, and yours truly, the solitary Indian, found its way to the border post between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. We had spent the past four days in Turkmenistan, starting with Ashgabat, the modern capital of Turkmenistan, which the self-proclaimed “father of the nation”, President Turkmenbashy, had converted into his version of Dubai meeting Disneyland, with extraordinary buildings of white marble all over the place. The next two days were spent traveling through the countryside and desert, camping and staying at a local home along the way. Turkmenistan is an interesting country, where you see a real effort being made to build a new nation in a span of fifteen years, using petrodollars as currency and one man’s worldview as a vision. The social contract that Turkmenbashy has with his people was apparent throughout the country. In exchange for giving him extraordinary authoritian powers, the people of Turkemistan find themselves with free water, electricity, virtually free petrol and satellite TV, and not to mention $1 airfare anywhere in the country. Employment is available through a bloated government and a nascent private sector. Books written by the President are required coursework in schools, and monuments to the President, his family members, and his books can be found everywhere.
Throughout Turkmenistan we found the people friendly, but a little reserved. Tourists were few and far between. Our guide had told us that there were only about twenty thousands tourists a year in the country. This made waling around the various towns and markets extremely interesting and exciting. The Ashgabat market, especially. reputed to be the largest market in Central Asia, you could buy anything from camels to cars to souveniers to meat, vegetables, hardware, CDs. Rumor has it that you could even find old Soviet miltary hardware but since we weren’t sure of the export regulations we decided not to look for the T-72 or a MiG fighter jet.
Along the way, we had stopped in the middle of the Karakum desert to camp for the night, when someone had the brilliant idea of viewing a flaming gas crater seven km inside the desert. After some intense negotiations, our guide was able to find a dump truck and an earth-mover that took us across the desert to see the flaming gas crater. It was a fantastic experience going in the back of a dump-truck, and having the earth-mover push us out whenever we got stuck in the sand.
After spending the night in the middle of the desert with hardly another soul in sight, we continued on, and made our way to Kunye Urgench, a little town with some mausoleums and towers from the 10th-14th century. This was a minor province along the silk route, and you could see a similarity in architecture between some of the towers here and that of the Qutub Minar and other aspects of pre-mughal artchitecture in India. For us, however, the importance of Kunye Urgench lay not in these ruins but rather spending the night at a former Soviet government guest house and eating a Korean meal! Apparently, many Korean refugees found their way to Turkmenistan around the time the Japanese were looking to invade Korea, in early twentieth century. They found odd jobs, and being landless, were very poor. One such family worked as a cook and caretaker of this large country house which used to be used by the Soviets, and now by the few tourists who make their way here, such as us. The feast was a fusion of Korean and Central Asian influences, and was absolutely delicious.
After spending the night in Kunye Urgench, we made our way towards the border, stopping briefly for supplies at the border town of Doshoyet. At the Doshoyet market, we were the novelty. While Ashgabat, the capital, still saw a fair number of these tourists, it seemed that Doshoyet had hardly seen any tourists other than us, probably because our tour group was the only one allowed to conduct overland tours in the country, and such a tour would be the only one to find its way to this town. The people at the market were extremely friendly, and unlike Ashgabat where taking pictures was a no-no in most places, the people here insisted on having their photographs taken, and would come up to you multiple times!
But what about Shah Rukh Khan? Ah yes. Other than spying someone watching “Kal Ho Na Ho” in a tiny video store in the Ashgabat market, I had not come across my fellow countryman anywhere between Ashgabat and the the border. HAt the border, however, the story was completely different. The Turkmens, and as I was about to find out, the Uzbeks, love paperwork and documents and things in triplicate. Having a twenty passenger truck carrying people from England to China by road, and supplies for such a journey, made things more complicated as well. That is, until they saw me. At first the border guard looked at me and asked “Indee”? As soon as I said yes, yes face broke into a smile, revealing his golden teeth (another Turkmen feature), and he blurted out “Shah Rukh Khan?”. Seeing vigorous head-nodding from me, he continued, encouraged, “Juhi Chawla?”, to which I replied “Aishwarya Rai?”, and we became the best of friends after that. Guards came from both sides of the border, and to everyone, the magic word was Shah Rukh Khan. My fellow-travellers were flabbergasted at this, and to them it was quite the experience. Once again, when we reached the Uzbek checkpost, like clockwork, the questions followed- “Hindoostani?”, “Shah Rukh Khan?”. And then a smile. We were on the bus, waiting for the final checkpoint, when a lady sitting next to the bus saw me, and started dancing Bollywood style.
In the modern world, we get very jaded and hardly think about things. The Raj Kapoor story that I had read would seem to out of place in New York or London or anywhere else, where people are just used to seeing Indians all over the place. Yet here, in Turkmenistan, and the few hours that I have been in Uzbekistan, I’ve suddenly become the symbol of Bollywood- the closest they can, or for that matter I can, get to Shah Rukh Khan. I have another ten days in Uzbekistan, and while there are definitely more tourists here than Turkmenistan, I’m sure there’ll be a lot more adventures here.
Note: For two weeks, I am traveling across Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan by road with Dragoman Overland. The overland experience is a unique adventure in and of itself, with the truck, personalities of fellow travelers, and people you encounter in remote parts of the world. This is the first experience of many to come by on the trip.
