An Uzbek Odyssey: The bookseller and public historian of Bukhara

It's often the most random encounters with erstwhile strangers that we remember the most when travelling.

As I walked towards the main bazaar through the central park, I saw a man wearing a traditional Uzbek cap and standing near a mobile book stall. He smiled at me and said Namaste to which I greeted him back and started looking at his interesting collection of mostly secondhand books.

“You read Russian,” the man asked with a lit-up face. When I replied in…