It was past nine when we arrived at Bukhara’s railway station. We were taking the overnight Orient Express to Tashkent. The dry winter mist from Zarafshan river had enveloped the station, most of whose buildings were shadowy gallery of rooftops and glassy windows. On the platform arriving passengers were yawning, shambling in fatigue. The potters leaned on luggage carriers, our carriage was being coupled with the Orient-Express, whose door was thrown open after a while by a conductor wearing shiny cap straight out of a Russian spy movie, tossing us into a warm compartment smelling of fresh linen. Far on the other side of the train wintry years of night silence and spite fell on Buxoro’s brown sandscape. Paul Theroux had taken the same train in 1975 while travelling from London to Tokyo across Central Asia. 

Uzbekistan and its religionsUzbekistan is a secular state, most of whose citizens practice Islam. According to archaeologists the birthplace of Zoroastrianism was the land of ancient Khorezm, or the region around today’s West Uzbekistan - the city of Khiva. Navruz is celebrated annually on March 21 symbolizing the legacy of Zoroastrianism in today’s Uzbekistan. The process of Islamization of Central Asia began with the Arab conquest in the late 8th century; with the result the Arab culture synthesized with indigenous Turkic and Persian cultures. In the 9th century representatives of the Persian dynasty of Samanids based their capital in Bukhara engaging in intense missionary activities solidifying the new faith – a culture which found its way to Kashmir few centuries later through Sadats. Buddhism spread in present day Uzbekistan in the beginning of the common era and coincided with the reign of Kushans. A brief introduction to the history of religions in Uzbekistan is crucial in understanding its people – which is what bought me and my family to Central Asia at the end of last year – a curiosity to see a culture which is much like us, bringing a perspective into my children’s consciousness of who we are. On cold early mornings when the Afrosia train waded through the vineyards, apricot orchards on either side, under faint glow of December sun, while we travelled from Tashkent to Samarkand, we were shot into a wonderful setting. A manure laden truck stopped at a junction, schoolboys in dark blue blazers waved at the train, a farmer using his rake to clean his barn open at this hour of the day, a woman cutting dry grass with a sickle, scrawny chicken in the sun outside farm cottages. Six neat beehives, a derelict steam engine with wild weed, a tractor at a level crossing. Out the other window an old Chevrolet like a Soviet monument was struggling on the road,........

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