Translated by from the Uzbek language Sarah Kendzyor. U.S.A
One day, after I finished eighth grade and was about to start ninth, my father unexpectedly granted me a special kindness:
"Do you want to study at a technical school?" he asked. I was surprised. It was as if a miracle had occurred and my father had suddenly been transformed into another person. I was delighted. I assumed it meant that my father was going to send me to art school because of my talent for drawing.
"Yes, I want to," I said. My father began to talk about the superiority of technicalshools for my education.
"The dormitories arefree. You get free clothes, and there is a hot meal three times every day," he said. At these words I dropped the watermelon that I had been carrying under my arm.
"Yes, I get it, the cost of clothing and food has become difficult for my father," I thought to myself. It was true, at the time my father was worried. One time a group of artists had come to display at a conference held in the collective farm clubhouse. Because there was a carpenter who kept singing about wood, the head of the farm had my father build a stage. When my father and his pupils finished it, they tried to take a ball of wire outside, and at that point my father ended up getting electrocuted. He had to go to the intensive care unit and ended up being handicapped. From then on it became difficult for him to meet the family"s living expenses. I knew about this, even though I was young. That"s why I decided to reject his invitation even though I understood the real situation. I thought this might help in some small way.
"What kind of subject will I be mastering?" I asked, giving nothing away.
"Tractors," my father answered. I had to think about this one - my interest in technical subjects was absolutely zero. But I thought to myself, maybe this would ease my father"s pain.
"OK, I"ll do it," I said. My father beamed.
"Alright, let"s get your things together. I"m going to take you to see a professor at the technical school," he said.
I packed up my things. We went through the cotton fields on the collective farm to get to the technical school. I knew that this school accepted people without an examination. When we arrived my father sent me to meet with the professor in the field shelter. I recognized some children who I had not thought about since I was seven who were nowtechnicalcollege technical college students. As they returned from the cotton they begun to study. As luck would have it, there were some subjects taught there that I had interest in. The technical college library became a favorite place of mine. I initially thought I saw poets working there. One day during the break our literature teacher made note of a poem that had been written on the table in pen.
"Did you copy these poems from somewhere?" I asked. The teacher laughed and answered: "I wrote this poem myself." I was surprised.
"Hey, teacher, do you work as a poet?" I asked. Again he laughed.
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"Anyone could write a poem. Poetry is not a profession," he said.
I was quiet for a moment, and then asked:
"Could I write a poem as well?"
"Of course," he replied.
The bell rang and class began. I listened eagerly to the lesson that he was teaching that day. I vowed to myself that from that day forward, I would write poems. After the class I started to write a poem on paper but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn"t compose a single line of poetry.
The next day I told the teacher that I was unable to write poetry. From then on he taught me the secrets of writing poetry, and I wrote a poem about a breeze, and from there kept going. I still remember these verses:
Breeze, soft breeze
Leaves dancing in the wind
Flirting with the sky, with the air
Flapping your wings down.
Having written that verse with my teacher, I continued the poem:
You blow in the night by the full moon,
Smiling in encouragement,
Your wave cannot endure the valley,
Your strength is tested in action.
A dandelion blooms again,
In response you say hello.
All this unlimited land before you,
You sink deep in thought.
After he read my poem, my teacher stared at me in surprise.
"Excellent, in the future you will be a great poet," he said.
The teacher who said these words was the poet Farid Usmon, who is known for his distinctive mix of contemporary Uzbek literature and classical Arabic-Persian prosody.
That is how I began writing poems. One wonderful day my friends Rashid and a poet named Olimjon Xoldor brought me to their literature circle. Olimjon Xoldor would sit in a seat which had been transformed into a place of honor for the occasion, poets would read a designated poem, and discuss what they thought.
One time I brought a poem I had written about a frog to the group. The poem was about a frog that had bounced around a stove and was burnt by coal, and juxtaposed with a cold child. The greedy frog, who had swallowed the coal, died tragically through his desire.
After I"d read my poem, Olimjon Xoldor turned towards the circle:
"Who wants to give their opinion of this poem?" he said. Someone raised their hand. It was the poet Nusrat Abdusalomov. He stood up and began to criticize my poem.
"A frog never would swallow coal," he said. I was very upset. Then someone else raised their hand. I recognized him as the well-known poet Karimjob Qobilov. Qobilov was a thin man with long hair, over which he wore a cap, and he was crippled in one leg. He had a nose like a Bulgarian pepper; great, buling eyes, and a long face. This poet stood up, and said that he had liked my poem:
"Xoldor is an observant boy. In truth, a frog would indeed swallow a lump of coal. One evening I was smoking a cigarette, and a curious frog thought the embers were a beetle, and this frog just licked it up. He thrashed about, poor thing," he said.
At this Olimjon Xoldor began laughing. He laughed so long his shoulders began to shake. Tears came out of his eyes. Still laughing, he began to speak:
"When I was a kid, my mother was melting sheep fat in the oven, stoking the embers, scattering them on some chickens that were near the stove, and the chickens ended up thrashing about as well. These events just came back into my mind. The poem that Xoldor wrote did it naturally," said Olimjon Xoldor. This is the way my first literary society went.
Years passed, and I found my own place in literature. My followers are many. Even so much that young artists began to claim me as their teacher. My books were published, and I joined the Uzbekistan Writers Union. I"ve heard from people that Farid Usmon said with pride:
"Xoldor Vulqon was my apprentice. I"ve had hundreds of student apprentices and there is no equal," he is rumored to have said.
When my friend died, my village was not the same. It was like I was completely alone in the world, like my existence was empty. "A dog who tied at the neck has no use for hunting," they say. After I received my diploma with perfect grades from in my scientific work SPTU, in the ordinary common language "Latapizu", I began to make a living with my drawing skills, which I loved to do and which didn"t have to do with my diploma.
I started to work as an artist in an iron factory located in a place called Kuyganyor. Here I worked on pictures on the panels of the officers of the factory, outfitting them with displays of agitation. I also would write, quickly replacing the poets who had summoned the progressive laborers of communism. Besides that, I got additional money working under the orders of various organizations and establishments of the collective farm. One day an influential person from an organization left for his house with a drawing of a worker"s daughter drawn on a stand. When morning arrived, that same girl"s picture had been smeared over. I was really furious and began to investigate. That night the leaders were in their offices drinking alcohol and eating dinner. As they became drunk, one of the deputies kissed the picture of the girl in an inappropriate way. As I moved to strike the deputy, my friend Oxunjon arrived. I told him what had happened, and he began to open up about his pain:
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"Oh Xoldorjon, that"s nothing. I created a picture of Lenin on the façade of the building under the orders of the organization. The façade was very high and stood straight up. I worked on putting up a thick blackboard on the highest part of the façade. My students tied a rope from the bottom for the paint. I pulled it up. By this time, spectators had gathered to watch my work. I see now that I was cursed, because the blackboard was decayed, and the foundation beneath my legs collapsed with a snapping sound.
"I cascaded to the ground like in a movie, a newspaper hat on my head and a paintbrush in my hand. As fortune would have it the floor was covered in dirt. I landed on the ground, creating a cloud of dust in my wake. The spectators were terrified and froze in their places. A jar of red paint had landed right near my head and began to leak out. Moaning from the pain in my legs, I stood up and limped over to where the people were standing. The people took in the red substance gushing from the artist"s head and thought my brains were leaking from my skull. That"s when the ambulance arrived to take me to the hospital. I was in the hospital for a month. You see, a customer is like a dog, he does not leave his organization," said Oxunjon.
I laughed at these words as I painted over the foundation, drawing the picture of the female worker once again.