Random Encounters and ‘Area’ Studies

The study of ‘areas’ has faced challenges not just from the impact of globalization that has called into question the relevance of ‘areas’ or ‘regions’ as units of analysis but also from a disciplinary perspective where there has been a long standing belief that to engage with an area requires linguistic training, anthropological and sociological enquiries and exposure to everyday life, the focus being the distinctiveness of the local rather than the identification of patterns. This coupled with the perennial issue of ‘areas’ as artificially created and the ‘outsiders’ gaze as limiting access to the realities of ‘regions’ means that the aspirant ‘area specialist’ is faced with a colossal task. Yet, the study of areas is not without its advantages and travel remains one of them. Travel and ensuing encounters often define the ways in which areas are ‘read’but also ways in which the area perceives its interlocutor.This often fascinating encounter of the ‘outsider’ with the ‘insider’ is reflected here through some random encounters.

As a collective, the people of Bengal (in the eastern part of India) where I come from are known as compulsive travelers and few regions of the globe remain un-trodden by them particularly during the autumn break. The Bengali wanderlust goes back to history and medieval Bengali literature is as replete with travelogues as is modern Bengali literature and films. Along with this love of travel is a second and perhaps more important love and compulsive requirement—fish.Their overlap (or the lack of it in certain transitory and unfortunate situations) often creates the possibilities of crisis. In the course of trips to various cities in Central Asia the search for freshwater fish led to interesting experiences. One such search led me and my colleague to the edge of Alayski Bazar in Tashkent where after a number of enquires we were led to a single man holding up a massive fish, nearly as big as himself, for sale. The deal was to buy the fish whole and used as we were to the comfort of manageable, scaled and cleaned pieces being readily available for cooking in small amounts this was a culinary disaster. More so since there was little chance of our being able to eat the whole fish let alone carry it back to our third floor apartment in aold Soviet style building.

These forays into the markets, however, invariably led to long conversations between us and the local traders. Most began with questions about our homes and our hometown, Kolkata, evoked memories of one particularly popular Bengali filmstar, MithunChakraborty. No amount of repeating that the global Bengali population of 250 million was not all related, would convince them that we were in no position to relay messages back to the star. But since this would also invariably lead to discounts in bazaars, were bargaining is a way of life, we played along. The Central Asian affinity to Indian cinema is of course well documented and at any point of time there are dubbed versions of Bollywood movies being aired by the local channels in any café or restaurant that one visited.This connect however goes beyond the magic realism of romance around trees to a genuine empathy between two cultures that have been connected for many generations. And reflective of this was the flourishing book trade between Kolkata and the cities of Central Asiathat has been referred to in research on trade along the Silk Road.

This empathy is reflected in language and there are words in the Bengali language that echo this association. The dried plum, that used to come into the city, are locally known  even today as aluBokara, a clear indication that while their point of origin could be a wider region from Iran, Afghanistan to Central Asia they were identified as ‘Bukharan’. The other word that comes to one’s mind is “Ujbuk” a term that could be loosely translated to indicate association with things that were foreign or unknown or out of the ordinary though not always in a very positive sense.

Bengali on the other hand was one of the languages studied at the Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent and the place where this final encounter took place. To support our long term visas we had been given teaching assignments at the Institute, where we taught on weekends. Not sure about the extent of interest in the language among our young students we carried with us primers — the iconic Sahaj Path by Rabindranath Tagore, who in order to make the language more accessible had reduced some of the alphabets not commonly used in the language. And that became our nemesis as the students (who we later found out already had primary knowledge of the language) gently pointed to their absence in our first lesson —the absence of some alphabets of a language whose usage among the younger generation in Bengal is in decline. Our arrogant assumption about superior knowledge of our linguistic heritage thus having been firmly put in place we moved ahead with greater caution.

It is these and other numerous such encounters that colours my perception of the ‘area’ identified as Central Asia. An area identified as ‘problematic’ and largely reduced to geopolitical analysis.

Anita

8 February 2018