Chapter Seven
Mir Kaligulaev recounts:
“In 1997, I think the year was – I definitely remember that it was quite a spell after Bamberg – Belgi came to Tashkent from Osh and phoned me at home to suggest that we should meet and have a chat. I was happy to agree, after all Tashkent may be a big city, but there isn’t really anyone to talk to: ‘the others are not here, and they are far away’ – as the great Sufi poet Saadi said. I was renting a room on my Kara-Kamish Street and I invited him to come over, but he said that he was invited to visit two Uzbek writers whose names I didn’t know, and so he suggested meeting at their place. To be quite honest, I didn’t really want to visit people I didn’t know, and I suggested a compromise: Why didn’t he bring them to my modest hovel, and I could promi
