The story of a teacher whose son had left abroad since long and had applied for political asylum in England

[author title=”Sherzod Artikov” image=”https://sindhcourier.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Sherzod-Artikov-Uzbek-Writer-Sindh-Courier-2.jpg”]Sherzod Artikov, short story writer and poet, was born in 1985 in the city of Marghilan of Uzbekistan. He graduated from Fergana Polytechnic institute in 2005. He was one of the winners of the national literary contest “My Pearl Region” in prose in 2019. In 2020, his first book “The Autumn’s Symphony” was published in Uzbekistan. In 2021, his works were published in the anthology called “World Writers” in Bangladesh, “Asia Sings” and “Mediterranean Waves” in Egypt in English language.[/author]

 

Far and far away…..

As I entered the fiction part of the city library, I felt an uplifting mood. I had missed this place so much. In the past, for some reason, I found in this room the peace that I had always longed for, which I could not even find at my home.

After I selected some of the books to read, the librarian registered them on my subscription card. I was waiting for her to finish the paperwork when I saw my teacher Rasul Azizovich sitting in the reading room. Although he was sitting in the last row, the library was not crowded, so he was visible at a glance.

He was about sixty years of age, a little belly and thin, with hair falling mainly from both sides of  his forehead, his eyes boldly caring for a man, his shoulders as wide as soldier’s , cheerful by nature, quite calm, and strong-willed. He had been a teacher at the institute I attended in the city for years. He did not teach for a year in between, when he had heart problems. He even wanted to retire early, relying on the advice of doctors.  However, when his son left for England to continue his studies, he returned to work and began teaching again.

I knew him from my student time. Although my relationship with most of the teachers at the institute was not so very good at that time, I often talked to and consulted with him. This is because Rasul Azizovich did not look like other teachers. He had an innate pedagogical ability, and his extreme zeal was very impressive in comparison with the teachers of the institute, who had just begun to work superficially.

“To tell the truth, I recognized you when you approached,” he said as I approached him to greet.

He pushed the empty chair next to me to my side and invited me to sit down. He looked quite tired.

“My lectures ended early,” he said as I sat down on the chair. He took off his glasses.” That’s I came directly here.”

His eyes were red, probably from exhaustion. He looked around for a moment with those red eyes and suddenly asked me a question. He had such a habit.

“What do you know about England? I’m sorry … what do you think, what kind of opinion have you got, I mean.”

In front of him there was a green-covered encyclopedia. Wearing his glasses, he went down to leaf through the book. As he showed me the pictures in it, he forgot the question as well.

“Look at this, here is Trafalgar Square. It’s huge, isn’t it? This is probably the Westminster Abbey. This is Buckingham Palace. Interesting, no matter how beautiful and magnificent, for some reason it does not attract. What do you say?

As he turned the pages of the book one by one, he began to tell me the details of the pictures in it, like a skilled guide who is a master of his work.

“This is the mummified body of Pharaoh in the British Museum,” he said at the end of the English section of the book.

“England has a lot to offer,” I said as he closed the book and set it aside, not knowing what else I could say.

Rasul Azizovich then looked at me with a look of disappointment in his eyes.

“Yes, a lot. But there are also attractions in Mongolia, Liberia or the shores of Ivory that almost no one knows about. Isn’t it so?”

I wanted to say that there may be, but it was ridiculous to compare the cultural heritage of the British country with the cultural heritage of them. However, I changed my mind, thinking that I would hurt him.

“Attractions! The world-famous London a work place that pays a thousand pounds a week,” he said after a while, suddenly laughing sarcastically. “Tell me, are they worth citizenship?” You didn’t understand, apparently. Is worth it to become an English citizen?”

First the talk about England, then the talk about its cultural heritage, and finally this question really surprised me. I needed an explanation right now because I didn’t quite understand what the point was actually about. Finally, Rasul Azizovich himself came to help.

“I received a letter from my son yesterday, nearly in the evening.  He asked for political asylum from the British government in order to stay in England on a regular basis.”

At that moment, as if something was stuck in his throat, he swallowed hard several times, then took a handkerchief from the pocket of his suit and held it for a while, holding it to his lips. After he put it back in his pocket and froze as he stared at one point.

“I’ve been feeling this for a long time,” he continued. “My son wrote always about England excitedly in the emails he sent me in the early days of his studies. Reading them, I thought it was the product of a first impression that would pass away soon. That’s right. When a person first visits a country he has never seen, he is initially overwhelmed by strong impressions, and it is not always easy to get out of their influence.”

“So he excitedly wrote letters about England, about visiting the sightseeing there. I was always indifferent to his letters, which were immersed in wonderful details about England, because I wanted to know more about his studies, not about his travels. Exactly about studies I would like him to know how he was studying, how he was mastering the lessons, how he was preparing for the exams, I wanted him to write more about it.”

“Having finished his studies and got his master’s degree, I firmly believed that he would return. However, even after he got master’s degree, my son stayed there. Naturally, I was upset about that. Still, I did not express my displeasure to him, but only asked him why he had stayed so long. He didn’t say it. He didn’t want to say that. I asked again, and the same thing happened again. I didn’t ask any more questions. In the meantime, I ate my fill, indulging in various thoughts. In the end, he said.  He wrote in a letter that he was working. I was stunned by where he worked. In any case, if you hear an expert with a master’s degree in law washing dishes in a restaurant, not only the parents, but also the strangers must have stared at him.”

“For this reason, for the first time I expressed my dissatisfaction with him. During our correspondence, I hit him hard, reprimanded him, and pointed out that he was doing something inappropriate. He wrote that he was upset with me in response and did not write a single sentence to me for several weeks.”

“After a while, I finally got another letter from him yesterday. After reading the letter, I realized that he had found a decent job. A thousand pounds a week is paid there. This message affected me neither positively nor negatively. My thoughts were tied to the second part of the letter. As I glanced at it, I was almost mad to know that my son had decided to live as an immigrant in England and then applied for political asylum from the British government in order to obtain citizenship.”

Rasul Azizovich loosened his collar and sighed heavily.

“Are you feeling bad, teacher?” I said, worrying that his veins became visible of coughing.

He showed with his hands that everything was fine.

“When I think of my son’s last letter, I feel like I couldn’t bring him up properly. It sounds so painful. The decisions he made for himself are the product of my upbringing. I have to admit, that’s it. Moreover, the national ideology is not fully formed. The national ideology is not fully formed not only in him, but also, as he, in most of the other local youth who go to study for universities like Massachusetts, Ohio, Birmingham, Glasgow, Sheffield are not fully formed. As it is superficially formed, so concepts such as homeland and civic duty do not reach their consciousness. Therefore, they can’t stop themselves from making stupid decisions. Their minds are focused on how to effectively manage a bank, an enterprise, or to solve legal and diplomatic issues instantly, and when it comes to understanding simple truths, it fails to function. At one glance, one of them seeks political asylum in a society with a different language, religion and mentality, without thinking about the essence and consequences of what he is doing; the second marries a light-hearted woman to become a full member of that society; third one washes dishes or cleans the floor in a restaurant while being well educated  if  he is well paid;  the  fourth one waves hands the oriental upbringing of his parents and the national customs and traditions that shaped him as a person, and begins to live happily far away from his homeland, because of  popular culture, which has become an ornament of the Western mentality and so on…”

For some reason, it was not even audible when a fly was flying in the library. That is why the sound of the bell, which suddenly rang throughout the hall, suddenly woke both Rasul Azizovich and me up. The woman on duty at the library rang the bell in her hand several more times. It meant it was lunch time and the library would be closed for an hour. Hearing the sound of the bell, everyone got up and began handing over the books they had received to read in the reading room to the library staff. I waited in the hallway for Rasul Azizovich, who had gone to hand over the book he had received, among others. When he handed over his book, we went out of the library together.

“By being obsessed with myself, I didn’t ask where you worked,” he said, glancing at me from head to toe on the street.

I told him where I worked.

“All right,” he said after hearing my answer. “Keep on in this way”

The clouds were dense in the sky at that time, and it became very gray, and the landscape with the ground that was full of yellow leaves was squeezing the heart completely.

“If only my son were here, too,” said Rasul Azizovich, looking at the people running down the street with their worries. “But he’s far away – Far and far away!”

Then he held out his hand loosely and said goodbye to me. As he was going, not hurrying, faithful to his habit, moreover, moving his legs a little like lame people, I stared at him for a long time under the damp November sky, clutching the books I had taken from the library in my arms …

[author title=”Muslimahon Makhmudova ” image=”https://sindhcourier.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Muslimahon-Makhmudova-Uzbek-Sindh-Courier-1.jpg”]Translated into English by Muslimahon Makhmudova, who is student of World Languages University. [/author]