PagesSectionsFrom the old notebook"A song that is not sung is a horse that is not ridden: it forgets its road." Kinsmen
By year
| From the family14 September 2013 This is Cholpon. Our grandfather Jumabai Sydykov died on 11 September, at home, in his 80th year. He was buried the next day beside his father, under the apricot tree hill. He asked that the blog stay open, so that the poems are not lost with the notebook. Thank you to everyone who read him and wrote to him. The last lesson28 April 2013 My hands do not hold the komuz like before. I told my students on Wednesday: this is the last lesson. The girl with the loaf of bread (now fifteen) asked: "Ata, who will play the first string?" I said, "You." She did not answer. She played it. We drank tea. The father came to pick her up and I told him: she plays better than I did at her age. He said: of course, she has a better teacher. I said, you are polite. He said, no, I am only telling you who it was. New Year30 December 2012 Eleven grandchildren came, and three great-grandchildren. The house was too small and the dog was too happy. Cholpon says there are 900 readers of this blog in six years. I said: that is one aitysh crowd. Good. Autumn at seventy-eight21 October 2012 The year comes to me as to an old friend, without hurry, with a basket. Here is a quince, here is a first frost, here is a morning with nothing in it. I take them all and say thank you. A man of seventy-eight has room. Sixty-one years13 May 2012 In May 1951 I wrote my first song, for a girl who didn't know my name. I was seventeen. Sixty-one years later I know the song, I know the girl's name, and I know why she didn't answer: she couldn't read. She is my wife. She learned to read from my letters. Cholpon says it's the best thing I have said on this page. I said, I said it only because I'm old. |